Editorial
One of the most tangible outcomes of Premier Li Qiang’s visit to Germany and France last week is that it appears to have finally left the Trumpian trade-war threat of “decoupling” from China on the ash heap of history.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and French Prime Minister Élisabeth Borne reassured Li in Berlin and Paris respectively that they categorically reject the notion of decoupling their economies from China.*
The idea of unleashing “complete decoupling” – in Trumpite terminology – between the world’s number-one (US) and number-two (China) economies must be one of the most harebrained schemes ever invented by a Western leader.
The problem is that the Trumpesque folly has poisoned relations between the West and China for too many years, and this at a period of turbulence when global cooperation on the greatest possible range of areas is more needed than ever before. At least until recently, the toxic notion of decoupling from China, despite its obvious impracticality and self-harm, had a growing number of “fan clubs” not just in the US (comprising both Democrats and Republicans) but also elsewhere in the West.
Scholz said at a joint press conference with Li that Germany rejects all forms of decoupling, and he insisted that “de-risking” is not “desinicisation”. While I wonder whether his reassuring remarks were fully understood by the general public, they are a welcome pledge that the German government does not pursue an “anti-China” agenda.
However, I still do have my doubts about how the conventional business term “de-risking” is used in a political – or even ideology-laden – context by certain Western politicians such as the Greens, one of the members of Germany’s three-party coalition.
Addressing German business community leaders in Berlin, Li underlined that risk prevention and cooperation are not mutually exclusive, pointing out that “failure to cooperate is the biggest risk, and failure to develop is the biggest insecurity.”
The funding of the German people’s high standard of living, free education including at university level and, comparatively speaking, generous social welfare and public health services depends, to a large extent, on its income from external trade, China being Germany’s top trading partner for seven consecutive years, ahead of the US. Of course, foreign trade means interdependence. All of the world’s major economies do have interdependent relationships. To a considerable degree, economic interdependence requires cooperation which creates business opportunities and, hopefully, wealth for as many people as possible.
In Berlin, Li proposed tackling climate change as one of the guiding visions for China-Germany cooperation in the future. Climate-change cooperation is essential to humanity’s existence in a liveable environment.
Li also visited the Bavarian capital of Munich, where he was offered a warm and colourful welcome by children and riflemen in traditional garb. As someone who spent his university years in Munich, I can attest to the fact that Bavarians are Germany’s best hosts. They know how to treat their guests well and their cuisine and beer are top notch.
In Paris, apart from talks with his French counterpart, Li also met with President Emmanuel Macron and European Council President Charles Michel on the sidelines of the Summit for a New Global Financing Pact.
Borne told Li that the French side is willing to participate in China’s high-quality development, appreciates China’s continuous delivery of positive signals to expand opening up, and will not take discriminatory measures against Chinese companies. I hope that other EU member states will pursue the same policies promised by the French prime minister vis-à-vis Chinese companies.
In a separate meeting Li told Michel that there is no fundamental conflict of interests between China and the EU and that both should enhance mutual trust and address concerns through successful cooperation.
In his meeting with Li, Macron welcomed Chinese companies to invest in France and expand cooperation in emerging areas such as green and environmental protection and new energy.
In a world full of challenges, France and China should adhere to resultful multilateralism, promote international solidarity, improve governance and promote solutions to global issues, Macron said.
The two-nation trip was Li’s first overseas tour since his election as premier by the National People’s Congress (NPC) in March. It was a significant and obviously successful visit. Germany is by far the 27-nation union’s biggest economy while France is the only EU country that is a permanent member of the UN Security Council. Both countries are China’s important partners in a wide range of areas – political, economic, cultural, scientific, technological and, last but not least, F&B – French wines and German beers are popular in China.
The visit was also significant for the other EU countries that, I am sure, all wish to have mutually beneficial relations with China, irrespective of how Sino-US relations, which have their historically very own dynamics and not infrequent ups and downs, are proceeding.
For instance, according to Portugal’s Lusa newswire, Portuguese Prime Minister António Costa told a Q&A session of the Assembly of the Republic (parliament) on Friday that his country has a “very clear” and stable position on its relationship with China.
“We have a centuries-old relationship with China, and we understand that we must have the best possible commercial relations with that country,” he said, adding: “We should have a relationship of mutual respect with China”.
Costa underlined that China has respected the terms of the Sino-Portuguese Joint Declaration on the Question of Macau, signed by the two sides in Beijing in 1987.
Li’s top-level talks in Berlin and Paris took place at a time when analysts are discussing the so-called “new Washington Consensus”.
According to an article by veteran columnist Edward Luce, US national editor of the Financial Times (the first English-language newspaper that I began to read regularly in the early 1970s) a few weeks ago**, “the old Washington Consensus” of the 1980s promoted neoliberal maxims for the developing world and China’s inclusion into the global economy, in particular in the run-up to China’s accession to the World Trade Organisation (WTO) in 2001. However, the “new Washington Consensus,” according to Luce, is now for the West to disengage from China.
Luce points out that, that nowadays “Washington is no longer the uncontested Rome of today’s world” and that the old consensus was a positive sum game, i.e., if one country got richer others did too. The new consensus is zero sum, i.e., one country’s growth comes at the expense of another’s.
According to the thought-provoking article, “Washington has lost faith in economic multilateralism” and that’s why, among other things, US President Jose Biden is so focused on economic competition with China. Well, in my modest opinion, that’s sad and bad for the rest of the world.
No doubt, competition is driving development as long as it does not exclude cooperation per se. In the business world, cooperative competition (aka “co-opetition”, according to the Jan-Feb 2021 Harvard Business Review)*** is a welcome concept. Why not in the realm of global politics too?
I agree with the Financial Times columnist that “a full-scale decoupling from China [as still advocated by anti-Beijing diehards in the US in particular] would make everyone poorer and create an Orwellian world of hostile blocs.”
The glad tidings right now is that the idea of decoupling from China seems to have finally ended up in the ashcan of history.
– Harald Brüning
*About a dozen news articles and commentaries about Li’s visit to Germany and France are available on our website: https://www.macaupostdaily.com/
**https://www.ft.com/content/42922712-cd33-4de0-8763-1cc271331a32
***https://hbr.org/2021/01/the-rules-of-co-opetition
