During Merkel's times, Germany was a great oil customer from Russia and a strong business partner from China.
Only three months after Berlin changed its government, Russia started the Ukraine’s invasion. Weeks ago, during the Chinese Olympics Games, Putin met Chinese President Xi and both declared in public their friendship and possible alliance for crucial businesses.
Now the consequences of all the changes in the political chess board are generating new movements.
Yesterday, the writer Joseph C. Sternberg posted in the Wall Street Journal an interesting opinion column that shows the last chess movement of Germany.
The story is titled “With Friends Like Putin, Xi May Lose Europe” and it starts with this statement: “China should be worried that Russia’s war in Ukraine has Germany rethinking its conciliatory foreign policy.”
Mr. Sternberg also says: “Whether Germany’s new skepticism of China sticks will be a major political, economic and strategic question of the next decade. A likely outcome is not a total divorce, but rather the adoption in Berlin of a less enthusiastic, more hard-nosed attitude toward China. That will still be a far cry from what Mr. Xi probably thought he’d get when he signed his friendship pact with Mr. Putin three months ago.”
This is my opinion comment posted in the WSJ Online blog section:
“The new German Chancellor is acting in a pragmatic way, trying to avoid close association with friends of Vladimir Putin, like China's President Xi. Olaf Scholz looks to walk for a safer "path" for Germany and its commercial relationships.”
SOURCES: The Wall Street Journal, Deutsche Welle, my own think tank.
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