https://www.reuters.com/markets/europe/germanys-scholz-surprised-by-companies-china-dependence-2022-11-25/
I know Olaf is a given a lot of deserved shits, but I think this gives some perspective into his “China problem”. Most German “Mittelstand” companies are heavily dependent on China. These companies are responsible for employing about 60% of the workforce. I don’t think it’d have been wise to continue to piss off China, especially in a period where the Russia war is ongoing.
I do agree that the dependence on China needs to be reduced to a minimum, given their atrocious policies on human rights. but it seems people in the west have a main character syndrome where they think they can reduce the dependence at their own pace, while the other country just does nothing. See how that turned out with Russia. Europe wants to reduce its dependence on Russia gas (rightly so), but is pissed that Russia fast-tracked it (even if it also at their own detriment).
I think Germany is in a precarious situation, and they have to be pragmatic about foreign policies, especially since there isn’t an abundance of cheap natural resources like in other states.
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>See how that turned out with Russia. Europe wants to reduce its dependence on Russia gas (rightly so), but is pissed that Russia fast-tracked it (even if it also at their own detriment).
You misunderstood something there. Russia would have preferred to keep delivering gas to Europe. Their plan was that by keeping Europe dependent on Russian oil and gas, they could keep them out of the Ukraine war. That’s why they put so much pressure to open NordStream 2 even after the invasion started. It was the EU (or rather Germany) who sped up the process of getting independent from Russian gas by denying the certification for NS2. Yes, the Russians reduced the gas supply through NS1 under the pretense of “technical problems caused by the sanctions”. But that was just to remind Germany of their dependence on the Russian gas and get them to cave in and open NS2. To which Germany responded by doubling down and making plans to get through the winter without Russian gas.
Then the pipelines blew up. We don’t know who did it yet. But the Russians certainly had no real motive. If they didn’t want to deliver gas to Europe, they just could have kept the pipelines closed at their end.