From Merkel to AfD: China's influence on German politics
When the global financial crisis broke out, a young German economist was preparing her doctoral thesis while living in China. She worked at the Bank of China and had become fluent in Mandarin. A few years later, upon returning to Germany, she joined the AfD. Now Alice Weidel is the candidate of the extreme party right in the upcoming German elections.
Key names have emerged from the German political class to understand European policy towards China. Conservative Angela Merkel was the symbol of Berlin and the EU's rapprochement with China on the rise. Its former minister and current President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, has led the opposite trend of greater confrontation with Beijing. Less well-known is the former Green MEP Reinhard Bütikofer, who positioned himself as the most public voice against the Chinese Communist Party in the European Parliament. Unlike in other EU countries, the German political debate on China is remarkably politicised.
The clash of sensibilities towards China was also evident in Olaf Scholz's defunct coalition government. His foreign minister – from the same anti-Chinese and pro-American Green party as Bütikofer – Annalena Baerbock called Xi Jinping a "dictator" in an interview on Fox News. The Social Democrat Scholz, for his part, was among the first European representatives to visit China post-pandemic, with the aim of reopening economic channels.
Weidel's AfD is an ambiguous case. In the European Parliament, his party has voted against resolutions criticising China. Former AfD leader Maximilian Krah has even been implicated in a case of possible Chinese espionage. But China is not like Russia or Trump, and has not shown sympathy for the European far right. A strong Europe that is less dependent on the US is Beijing's preferred model: the rise of the far right would weaken the European bloc. In any case, China will engage pragmatically with whatever force leads the Germany of the future.
The biggest names in the Sino-German relationship, however, are Volkswagen and BMW. The car industry is the heart of Germany's economic engine. Some German politicians have insisted that these companies should sharply reduce ties with China. This is unrealistic: no global car company can be internationally relevant without the Chinese market. Germany is also falling behind China's more affordable and advanced electric cars. The German car industry has lost relevance: it is a symbol of the country's economic stagnation, generating discontent and votes for the far right. When Weidel went to China in the 2000s, Germany was an industrial role model for Beijing. Now the world has changed and Berlin looks to China with envy, frustration, need and bewilderment.