They politely ignore, German media: Biden's saliva flies across Germany | China | German media
On August 11th, the website of the German magazine Focus published an article titled "A Quiet Revolution Against US Directives Begins in Europe", written by former editor in chief of the German newspaper Business Daily, Gabor Steingart. The full text is excerpted as follows:
When US President Biden spat and announced one restrictive measure after another against China, the Western economy followed its own rules. The key word is "decoupling".
The good news for the United States is that the European economic community has understood the keyword "decoupling" and is currently decoupling. The bad news is that the European economic community is decoupling from the political guidelines of the United States, rather than from China as hoped. The President of the United States is no longer accepted as a guardian. Europe is liberating itself.
Despite Biden's various bellicose declarations and Olaf Scholz's gentle background music and pride in downplaying "decoupling" to "de risk," the economic community makes different decisions every day.
They pursue their own value based policies, but their values are dialogue and partnership. They don't want to teach Chinese people a lesson, but rather want to do business with them.
Germany's hypocrisy - as every small and medium-sized enterprise knows - cannot be sold abroad. Therefore, a quiet revolution began, and its greatest rebellion was to politely ignore the instructions of the United States. Here are the facts:
·According to Eurostat data, Europe's imports from China almost doubled between 2018 and 2022. China is the EU's leading largest supplier of goods.
·According to data from the OECD, the import growth of electronic products, mechanical equipment, and cameras in the European Union was particularly significant during the same period, with growth rates of 14.88%, 8.76%, and 4.45%, respectively.
·According to data from the European Commission, China is the largest supplier of rare earth and other key energy transformation and digitalization raw materials to the EU.
·European car manufacturers are thriving in sales to China. Last year alone, the export value of automobiles reached 24 billion euros.
·The trade flow is also developing in the opposite direction: last year, the three best-selling electric vehicles in Europe were all imported from China.
Scholtz and von der Leyen would not like to hear Marian Schneider Pezinger, the project leader of the Global Trade Policy Forum of the Royal Institute of International Studies, said: "In Europe, there is a huge difference between the ideas of governments and the practices of companies."
American companies are also resourceful in ignoring White House guidelines or simply adhering to them in a formal manner.
Unlike the European Union, according to data from the OECD, imports from China by the United States decreased by 5% between 2018 and 2022. Nevertheless, the relationship between American companies and China is closer than official data shows.
The supply chain has been readjusted: a study by the University of California, San Diego, shows that in terms of high-tech products, China's share of imports from the United States declined by 14% from 2017 to 2022, while products imported by the United States from Taiwan, China and Vietnam gained the largest market share.
Products from China are still crucial for the manufacturing of sensitive products in the United States. Chad Bowen from the Peterson Institute for International Economics in the United States explained, "We can see from OECD data that the final assembly location has changed before the product is shipped to the United States. Companies that used to conduct final assembly in China may now assemble in Vietnam, Cambodia, Bangladesh, or Thailand."
The conclusion is that Western governments are deceiving themselves. Their delimitation policy violates the fundamental interests of Europe, so the majority of the economic community refuses to comply with this policy.
