FDP wants China stress tests for Germany

Berlin In a new position paper, the FDP parliamentary group calls for a more critical approach to China. “In relation to the People’s Republic of China, the ‘systemic rivalry’ from the descriptive triad of the EU Commission (partner, competitor and systemic rival) has come into focus in the past two years – rightly so,” says the paper, which was published on Tuesday was decided by the parliamentary group and was exclusively available to the Handelsblatt in advance.

China is ready to “use trade and economic policy as a geopolitical instrument of power” and is increasingly becoming a threat to the rules-based world order and, with a view to the Taiwan conflict, potentially also to world peace, the paper says. “We are in a new system competition – and have to accept it as such and think it through strategically.”