German Chancellor Angela Merkel has announced that Europe will have to find a “balance” between the promotion of its democracy and human rights values and the economic interests of doing business with China.
“We must define our own European interests, and this includes common ground [with China] on foreign policy, on economic policy and digital policy and many more,” Merkel said, speaking to European lawmakers in a human rights issues-related videoconference on Monday.
“The challenge over the next years in relation to China lies in finding a good balance between fighting for our values and our interests,” the Chancellor added, referring to China’s immense economic power and its large consumer markets, ripe for German investors.
Merkel’s comments follow reports last week that Berlin was interested in helping large German industrial interests including automakers strengthen their ties with China amid the Asian nation’s faster-than-expected recovery from the coronavirus crisis.
In October, China reported third-quarter GDP growth of 4.9 percent, a respectable showing compared with other major economies, including the US, the EU, Japan, India and Russia, who experienced declines of 2.9 percent, 4.4 percent, 4.9 percent, 7.5 percent and 3.6 percent, respectively.
Despite the optimistic German-Chinese trade trends, the Financial Times has reported that a draft plan for a post-Trump presidency put out by the European Commission is seeking to rebuild US-European ties at China’s expense, including through the strengthening of co-operation on issues ranging from the tech sector and digital regulation to the coronavirus, and ‘shared democratic principles’.
“As open democratic societies and market economies, the EU and the US agree on the strategic challenge presented by China’s growing international assertiveness, even if we do not always agree on the best way to consider this,” the draft says, according to FT.
