At the beginning of September, the special edition "griephan Edition 2017" - produced by griephan in cooperation with the Federation of German Industries (BDI) - with the topic "The challenge of global trade - setting standards creates markets". The issue includes articles on China's Silk Road initiative, the protectionist reflexes of the G20, free trade as an expression of free societies and the Port of Duisburg, the current starting and finishing point of the Silk Road.
The Silk Roads-initiative, consisting of the continental "economic belt of the Silk Road" and the "Maritime Silk Road of the 21st century" is Beijing's geostrategic concept, which aims to link Africa, Asia and Europe and the seas that connect them for trade. The Chinese approach can be described as "strategic synchronisation", meaning the integrated use of diplomatic, economic policy and military strategic instruments. The principle of "flag follows trade" applies here, meaning that the Chinese military initially plays a subordinate role, for example by participating in stabilisation missions at important hubs such as Djibouti.
In Germany, the first question to be asked is whether participation in a strategic co-operation with China has been neglected for too long. It has become clear that China has taken the strategic initiative and successfully set the agenda. The current Silk Roadsinitiative has the potential to shift the existing balance of power and create long-term dependencies.
However, this realisation should not lead to a fundamental defensive reaction. Anyone who is aware of Silk Roads-The risk of not recognising important shifts in the weighting of military and civilian instruments too late is that the initiative is closed off due to national or even European protectionism. Instead, a fundamentally broad-based approach to co-operation should be pursued. To begin with, particular attention could be paid to the maritime components of the Chinese initiative, such as the successful international naval cooperation already mentioned in the Horn of Africa with the participation of Chinese naval forces. And how do Germany and Europe view the participation of a Chinese task force - after all, the modern destroyer Changsha, the frigate Yuncheng and the troopship Luoma Lake took part - in a Russian naval exercise in the Baltic Sea in July 2017?
It is important to bear in mind what was mentioned at the beginning: the initiative and design comes from China Beijing is prioritising its strategic interests in this initiative and will give secondary importance to aspects such as the rule of law or human rights.
The players on this side of the Great Wall must realise that freedom must not be confused with arbitrariness. The alternative - free societies adapt to unfree ones or make lazy compromises - is not an option. As Dr Hubertus Bardt from the Cologne Institute for Economic Research states in a recent article for the griephan Edition 2017: "Free trade is more than a producer of prosperity for the countries involved, their companies and employees. On the outside, free trade is an expression of an open society on the inside." In addition to the need for modern infrastructure, political and social stability as well as reliability are required in order to be an attractive trading partner in the long term.
Sebastian Schulte
Germany correspondent
IHS Jane's Defence Weekly
and
Freelance journalist
English 
German
Of course, Siemens has robots built in China, just as Airbus has to produce in China. However, it is important to keep the innovation cycle in Germany. It's like the hare and the hedgehog: when China comes round the corner exhausted with the product, the hedgehog has already designed the next stage of innovation. China will catch up & catch up; innovation & creativity are the only tools the West has. Isolation is no more helpful than the Great Wall of China. And that is precisely why The Donald is quickly reaching his intellectual limits with 'America first!
Agreed.
In line with the new blog entry, the British weekly magazine "The Economist" has entitled its current issue "Does China play fair?" and illustrates in its editorial "how China is battling ever more intensely in world markets". The Economist is not far off the mark with Heinz Schulte when he states that "tensions over China's industrial might are threatening the architecture of the global economy". A simple, dominant fact is the reason for the tensions: Companies around the world are facing increasingly intense competition from their Chinese rivals. China is not the first country to industrialise, but no other has made the leap so quickly and on such a monumental scale, and today the country is the global pioneer of new technologies.
As much as China's achievements are admired, there is also a growing concern that the world is being dominated by an economy that is not behaving fairly. If all this is to end well in the end, then there is no getting around the true nature of China's competition. This has 3 dimensions: One illegal, one intense and one unfair. Each of these requires its own response.
Firstly, on the subject of illegality: the best example is the theft of intellectual property, usually through hacking. The good news is that this type of crime is on the decline. Not least because the more high-quality products Chinese companies produce, the better they are interested in protecting themselves. The second dimension - intensive but legal competition - is far more important. Chinese companies have proven that they can manufacture good products more cheaply. China has acquired a new reputation, particularly in the high-tech sector. If data is the new oil, then it has enormous reserves through hundreds of millions of users online; and whether you make cars in Germany, semiconductors in America or robots in Japan, the fiercest competitors in the future will come from China. Finally, the most difficult dimension to handle: unfair competition that does not break any global rules. The government is demanding that companies give up technologies as a quasi-admission cost to China's huge market. However, the government in Beijing is denying access to lucrative Chinese industrial sectors, while at the same time financing its own attack on precisely these industries abroad. Such behaviour is dangerous precisely because the current rules do not allow any recourse against it.
Don't get angry, but get even!
The categorisation of the Chinese competition into these 3 categories is helpful in finding an answer. Blatant illegality is the simplest. Governments must prosecute and take recourse, whether through the courts or the WHO. Although politically difficult, the best response to intense competition is still to embrace it. Consumers benefit from lower prices and faster innovation cycles. Instead of trying to stop job losses, governments should launch new training initiatives, create a reliable social safety net and invest more in education and research.
The most difficult category is competition, which is unfair but not illegal. America, Europe and the major Asian countries could jointly publish information denouncing Chinese practices that are harmful to the global economy - as happened in connection with overcapacities in the steel industry when they succeeded in forcing China to limit its surpluses. They should insist on reciprocity, demanding that China grant their companies the same access as the Chinese were granted to them. Governments should review their practices for monitoring investment from China so that threats to national security (and only threats to national security) can be blocked.
The responsibility for putting these things right lies predominantly with China. It probably wonders why it should hold back, after all, Germany and America got rich behind subsidies and tariff barriers in the 19th century; Great Britain and Japan pursued a policy of harassment. On the other hand, China should recognise that it has not only profited enormously from the existing global economic system, but that it has now become one of its trustees. Abuse it-illegally or by overburdening it-and it will break.
I find it very interesting that Mr Kaeser (Siemens) obviously disagrees and wants to build robots in China.
Please refer to Hans-Jürgen Witthoeft's eye-opening commentary "Hamburg's harbour in China's sights" in the recently published MarineForum. Honi soit qui mal y pense...
@U-869: Thanks for the article reference. It can be read at least temporarily at this link: http://marineforum.info/Aktuelles_Heft/Kommentar/kommentar.html
The sailor
I agree with Segler in principle. However, it is not just Germany, but the EU as a whole, that has favoured the position of the strength of the law. It has done well with this for years in the UN and the OSCE and has been supported by many non-member states of the EUROPEAN Union. Do we really need to reposition ourselves here just because countries like the RUS and China are backing the law of the jungle? I have yet to hear or read about any convincing change in international law to the Western-style one that has developed over centuries.
Dear Mr Jopp, no one has called for us to abandon support for the rule of law. I merely pointed out that the old majorities in favour of the current international legal order are dwindling and that we must adapt to this. There is no point in going on like this,
believes
the sailor
Even if China is currently propagating a changed legal conception of the South China Sea, in my opinion it is legally true to say that China no longer justifies its 9 Dash Line historically.
I also consider the term "legal warfare" by Segler to be unhelpful. Differing positions should continue to be negotiated in often lengthy proceedings. We don't call the US position on UNCLOS legal warfare either.
I think Mr Daum's comment about a different understanding of international law is helpful. We should promote this discussion here, because the law of the jungle is increasingly being propagated not only by the RUS but also by the USA.
Dear Mr Jopp, this is not about judging the Chinese position, and certainly not according to the principle that "America is bad too". It is a matter-of-fact observation that China, with its claims to power, is questioning the old, Western-style international legal order and opposing it with its own ideas.
Historically, it is by no means new, but the rule that dominant states propagate a legal system that legitimises their claims. As Mr Daum rightly points out, Europe has done this for centuries. Now China and other players are coming along and opposing this with their own ideas of order. The term lawfare, which I did not invent, shows just how tough these disputes can be.
In the absence of its own strength, Germany has relied on the rule of law to replace the rule of the strongest. However, this only works as long as the majority of the stronger nations have an interest in acting in accordance with an agreed legal order. Germany now finds itself in a situation in which it must reorient itself.
That's all I said,
states
the sailor
@Oliver Daum: I did not describe China's actions as reprehensible or surprising, but merely pointed out that there is potential for conflict here. So read carefully,
asks
the sailor
And perhaps another addition to this is the Chinese understanding of legal disputes as "lawfare", i.e. legal warfare: http://freebeacon.com/national-security/beijing-adopts-new-tactic-s-china-sea-claims/. There are all kinds of disputes on the horizon and we need to know what we want,
admonishes
the sailor
The pros and cons have been clearly set out. Politics and business are now in demand here, but also in the EU.
It is indeed the case that we have paid too little attention to China in the past. In parts of the Western alliance, Chinese activities are favoured for blanket opposition. We tend to forget that China and close cooperation with China does not always result in bad things. There is considerable potential to be tapped here, from which the German economy will certainly benefit. A skilful approach pays off here, as the German automotive industry has impressively demonstrated to its French competitor. The situation is similar when it comes to assessing the military situation; a negative judgement is made all too quickly here. Why should the Americans be allowed to operate worldwide, including in the South China Sea, but not the Chinese? Ultimately, they are only protecting their trade routes. When assessing divergent views on international law, one should bear in mind that China has developed its own centuries-old jurisprudence and thus also established traditional patterns that have developed, more or less in isolation, differently to "our", expanded values. Now the Chinese are also pushing onto the international stage and tensions are arising; it will be the task of our policy to resolve these, not to oppose them, in order to facilitate economic co-operation for mutual benefit.
That is a good observation. China, like other new players on the world stage, is not only shifting the balance of power, it is also changing the system of international law and international order, which has been shaped by the West for centuries, in its favour. So anyone who, like Germany, supports the rule of existing law between nations must be prepared for conflicts with China and others,
noticed
the sailor
I agree with the sailor. International law is Western-style law and China - like the USA and many other states - is trying to use the law in its favour. However, and here I draw different conclusions from the sailor, this is basically neither reprehensible nor surprising.
From the perspective of African and Asian states, international law is imposed law. As far as Japan and China are concerned, for example, Western states threatened to use military force in the 19th century if these states did not open their harbours to trade. This was accompanied by the subjugation of Japan and China to the Western states' ideas on trade law.
If we go back even further, then Spain and Portugal in South America, and all the other colonial states, also brought their legal concepts and social ideas to other cultures and enforced them by force.
At one point, Japan opened up almost completely to the Western world - even under considerable internal resistance. China was, and still is today, sceptical.
This should not be an excuse for aggression or violations of human rights. There is an awareness among all states that there are common values and interests. For example, no country in the world is allowed to kill for no reason. However, there is at least a rudimentary explanation for the fact that there are certainly different attitudes towards international law and that this is also provided for in international law (keyword: cultural relativism).
Greetings from Kiel
Oliver Daum
@ attentive reader
"Why should the Americans be allowed to operate worldwide, including in the South China Sea, but not the Chinese? Ultimately, they are only protecting their trade routes", you wrote; it couldn't be more naive - I had to rub my eyes...the Chinese are not interested in operating in a marginal sea in accordance with UNCLOS, as all seafarers do unhindered in the Baltic Sea, for example. It is about the declared annexation of the entire marginal sea within an arbitrarily drawn "nine-dash line". The South China Sea = territorial waters of the Middle Kingdom, literally underpinned by artificially erected concrete structures on underwater reefs in the order of several square kilometres!!! In 2016, the Permanent Court of Arbitration declared the lawsuit filed by the Philippines against this action to be legal and rejected China's "historical" claims as unlawful. I strongly recommend that you and the "sailor" read the article in this blog:
The arbitration award in Philippines v. China: Winners and losers - on both sides
Published on 3 August 2016 by Meer Verstehen
A guest article by Dr Oliver Daum, Institute for Security Policy at the Christian-Albrechts-University of Kiel
Incidentally, we should not make the mistake of putting our main ally in terms of the rule of law on the same level as totalitarian China, which tramples on human rights, just because the voters in the USA have chosen a characterless narcissist as president. The checks and balances of the greatest democratic system in the world have, by and large, worked so far and prevented bad things from happening. The rest of the West could do Mr Xi and Mr Putin no greater favour than to turn their backs on the USA.