{"id":111185,"date":"2026-08-07T09:25:36","date_gmt":"2026-08-07T09:25:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/111185\/"},"modified":"2026-08-07T09:25:36","modified_gmt":"2026-08-07T09:25:36","slug":"germans-emerge-as-europes-biggest-china-hawks-as-economic-pain-begins-to-bite","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/111185\/","title":{"rendered":"Germans emerge as Europe\u2019s biggest China hawks as economic pain begins to bite"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Germans have emerged as some of <a target=\"_self\" class=\"e1yy41x40 ef9u0v01 css-1ankfgb ecgc78b0\" href=\"https:\/\/www.scmp.com\/topics\/european-union?module=inline&amp;pgtype=article\" title=\"\" data-qa=\"BaseLink-renderAnchor-StyledAnchor\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Europe<\/a>\u2019s most hawkish voters on China, more likely to consider Beijing as a rival or an adversary than in any other major EU country, a new survey has shown.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">Published amid a bout of soul-searching in Berlin over whether to back a tougher approach towards China on trade, the findings suggest that the country\u2019s citizens might not be opposed to such a shift.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">A combined 49 per cent of German people polled considered China to be primarily a rival or an adversary, way ahead of the second of the 13 countries polled, which was 43 per cent in France \u2013 a long-time supporter of a more interventionist EU trade policy.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">Just 38 per cent of Germans see China in positive terms, either as a partner or ally. By contrast, 65 per cent of Spaniards and 62 per cent of Bulgarians view Beijing in such glowing terms.<\/p>\n<p><a target=\"_self\" class=\"e1yy41x40 ef9u0v01 css-1ankfgb ecgc78b0\" href=\"https:\/\/www.scmp.com\/topics\/germany?module=inline&amp;pgtype=article\" title=\"\" data-qa=\"BaseLink-renderAnchor-StyledAnchor\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Germany<\/a> is by far China\u2019s biggest trade and investment partner in Europe. For decades, a symbiosis between <a target=\"_self\" class=\"e1yy41x40 ef9u0v01 css-1ankfgb ecgc78b0\" href=\"https:\/\/www.scmp.com\/topics\/china-germany-relations?module=inline&amp;pgtype=article\" title=\"\" data-qa=\"BaseLink-renderAnchor-StyledAnchor\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">the two economies<\/a> helped deliver mutual industrial success. But the European power is enduring a broad-based manufacturing slowdown, with economists suggesting that China\u2019s industrial rise is a major contributing factor.<img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Economists say China\u2019s industrial rise is contributing to Germany\u2019s manufacturing slowdown. Photo: Reuters\" data-qa=\"BaseImage-handleRenderImage-StyledImage\" class=\"e1gf69pb2 css-6ikqhs e445x7d0\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/25c0efe1-17e9-45f4-8ce6-9103dd1f9ed4_7eab980c.jpg\" title=\"Economists say China\u2019s industrial rise is contributing to Germany\u2019s manufacturing slowdown. Photo: Reuters\"\/>Economists say China\u2019s industrial rise is contributing to Germany\u2019s manufacturing slowdown. Photo: Reuters<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">\u201cThe China shock has hit Germany particularly hard: its manufacturing sector lost around 420,000 jobs between 2019 and 2025 and it continues to shed 10,000 jobs each month,\u201d read the report by the European Council on Foreign Relations, a think tank.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Germans have emerged as some of Europe\u2019s most hawkish voters on China, more likely to consider Beijing as&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":111186,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[13183,1820,300,81,38005,39,4,1660,90,92,41712,29386,21332,5938,42249],"class_list":["post-111185","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-europe","tag-afd","tag-berlin","tag-brussels","tag-china","tag-christian-democratic-union","tag-eu","tag-europe","tag-european-council-on-foreign-relations","tag-france","tag-germany","tag-plaza-accord","tag-rhodium-group","tag-social-democrats","tag-volkswagen","tag-yuan"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111185","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=111185"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111185\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/111186"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=111185"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=111185"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=111185"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}