Beijing China is Germany’s most important trading partner, but at the same time tensions with Beijing are growing: That’s reason enough for the German government to realign its China policy. The Society for International Cooperation (GIZ) in China is now finding out what that could mean. In a secret wire report, the German embassy in Beijing calls for the GIZ projects to be reconsidered.
“Whereas the People’s Republic was initially primarily a partner for Germany,” it says, “it has long been a serious economic competitor and increasingly also a systemic rival.” Cooperation with China is also increasingly facing challenges in the context of GIZ projects. GIZ is a development cooperation organization that operates internationally on behalf of various federal ministries.
Against this background, it is important to examine how to react to the political changes in the host country and where adjustments are necessary. In the four-page report, which is available to the Handelsblatt, the federal government’s new China strategy is explicitly mentioned as a “good basis” for a reorganization of the federal company.
The federal government had already laid the foundation for a more critical policy in the coalition agreement. Work is currently underway on the concrete goals of the strategy. There is no date as to when it should be finished. “Our understanding is that China is a partner for us on global issues, a competitor in the economic sector, but also a system rival in terms of our understanding of values,” said Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock in an interview with “Zeit” at the beginning of the year.
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The confidential report shows how cooperation with China could change in the future. According to the paper, one should ensure “more than before” “that the cooperation also takes our goals into account in a measurable way and delivers sustainable results”. The report from Beijing, which is classified as “classified matter – for official use only”, is signed by Frank Rückert, acting Chargé d’Affaires at the German Embassy.
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The post of ambassador in Beijing is currently vacant. According to the document, “projects that have grown traditionally but only serve to maintain a dialogue that hardly works anymore in many areas” are no longer sustainable “in times of increasing system rivalry and decoupling being forced by Beijing”.
Although bilateral development cooperation officially ended in 2009, China is still the third largest recipient of German official development aid. GIZ has been active in China since 1982 and currently employs around 50 expatriates and 100 local staff there.
With dumping prices against the German competition.
(Photo: dpa)
The organization is 100 percent owned by the federal government, the main clients include the Federal Ministry of Economics, the Federal Ministry for the Environment and the Ministry for Development Aid (BMZ). The call for reform is not just aimed at GIZ itself, but above all at the clients in the ministries.
In China, GIZ is pursuing, among other things, legal cooperation on behalf of BMZ, cooperation in the area of Industry 4.0 on behalf of the Federal Ministry of Economics and various climate protection and energy projects on behalf of the Federal Ministry for the Environment. Some projects are due for extension this year.
In the wire report, the authors call for a critical review of current collaborations. “This applies above all to the areas in which Germany and China are in strategic competition with each other,” the paper says. Legal cooperation, parts of industrial policy and development cooperation in third countries are explicitly mentioned.
The authors write that more attention should be paid to the risks of cooperation with China. The outflow of know-how to Chinese companies is also explicitly mentioned. The risks include “unilateral knowledge and technology transfer, whitewashing and greenwashing and the (involuntary) promotion of strategic Chinese interests,” it says.
China has long been accused of operating industrial espionage and using dumping prices to strengthen its own companies at the expense of international competitors. A particularly drastic example is the solar industry. The Chinese government is said to have enabled domestic companies to push German companies against the wall with the help of state-subsidized prices.
This fear now also exists in other areas. “Cooperative approaches in the areas of climate and energy (…) face the challenge of [deutsche] interest in combating global climate change [chinesischen] subordinate to industrial policy interests in green technology and corresponding market leadership,” says the report.
It is also explicitly aimed at the role of the state directorate in Beijing. It says: “The ongoing coordination between the Federal Government and GIZ, including the GIZ country office, should be intensified” – a polite formulation of a larger problem.
As the Handelsblatt learned from German diplomatic circles and circles in the GIZ office, the federal government does appreciate the country office’s good contacts. Because foreign embassies in China are having increasing problems getting appointments with representatives of the Chinese ministries. However, an organization like GIZ that has been established locally for a long time can help establish these contacts.
Criticism of political solo efforts
However, the Beijing GIZ country director Thorsten Giehler has been criticized for months for various solo efforts and public political statements. Giehler, who has been Country Director of GIZ in China since January 2018, shared a post from the “Qiao Collective” portal on his Twitter account at the end of 2020 with the words “interesting compilation of resources and studies”.
The piece that Giehler found so “interesting” comprehensively denies China’s human rights abuses in western China’s Xinjiang province.
The contribution by “Qiao Collective”, which Giehler distributed, discredits critical reports by well-known media and experts on the subject as false. Particularly explosive: Giehler clearly appeared as a GIZ representative in the photo on his Twitter account, which he has since deleted.
Not only with this, but also with numerous other political posts on Twitter, he opposed his main client, the federal government, and argued in the interests of the Chinese government.
According to information from the Handelsblatt, Giehler’s solo efforts and political statements from embassy and GIZ circles have already led to several crisis talks with the German embassy in Beijing. After the tweet in which the human rights violations were denied, Giehler had a 45-minute conversation with Rückert, who was still the envoy at the time.
The paper makes it clear that the federal government does not tolerate such solo efforts. In such a complex and increasingly politicized environment as China, German interests can only be pursued sustainably and effectively, it says, “if we act consistently and coherently”. One of the recommendations for action in the report is “increased awareness of systemic difference among all those involved”.
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