Current Affairs

With Britain gone from Europe, there needs to be a coordinated voice in Europe, and the Berlin Forum, hosted by Korber Stiftung, explores the themes and concerns that are key elements to Germany’s foreign policy. Critical ideas and conceptual understanding of events in Ukraine have shaken Europe, and has challenged the essence of European hegemony because of Russian aggression which has challenged the sensibilities of Germany. But it is the other voices of Europe who have calculated the dangers of Russian aggression through experiences gained when living under occupation until the fall of the Soviet Union in 1989. These nations that lived through Soviet occupation are concerned with the way that Germany views the war in Ukraine and the wider foreign policy of Germany.

There are three concerns that are driving German foreign policy, the first is the war in Ukraine, the second is climate change and the third is the confrontation between Taiwan and China. Each a concern for every nation in the world, but it is a question of whether Germany can move on from appeasement and move towards a strategic argument that has not been developed by commercial concerns. Put succinctly by Artis Pabriks, the defence minister of Latvia, which has a population of under 2 million, argued that his country has contributed military aid and 300 million euros to the war in Ukraine. “What has Germany given?” he contended, then answered the question himself, “800 million euros […] with an economy that is hundreds of times bigger than our own”.

Urnis Reinsalm, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Republic of Estonia, recounted that he had hired a car at the start of the war in Ukraine and spoke to Generals, ordinary people, business people, and they all said, “please give us a true message”. “This is genocide,” he argued, “Putin has not made any secret of his intentions, this is a genocidal war, which would escalate the war, because all parties have to take action to stop a genocidal war. We have seen that all articles of the genocide convention, that all steps have been taken to prove that genocide has taken place. In September, three hundred thousand children went to school, a third could not go because of bombing”.

A New York Times journalist pointed out that 22% of Germans did not see Russia as a threat. Anne Baerbock, the Federal Minister of Foreign Affairs answered “this was not an official poll, people are afraid rather than angry. Good policy will help and defend the Ukrainians, but security is fragile”, she argued.

“The war in Ukraine did not start in 2022, not even in 2014 when Russia invaded Crimea, but in 2008 when Russia invaded Georgia”, asserted Ine Eriksen Soreide, the chair, standing committee on foreign affairs and defence, Storting. “This war started because Putin thought the West was weak, Putin believed he could walk into Ukraine and NATO would do nothing, […] this is a question of values that shape and form society.”

There is a question whether Germany had been over pacified after the second world war, asserted Artis Pabriks, and that the Riga conference had argued for more German boots on the ground to disconnect the real fears that the Baltic states felt.

“We need howitzers, we need more weapons to confront the Russians,” argued Inka Osmolovska, chair of the board Transatlantic Dialogue Centre, Kiev. 

“There have been a set of myths, delivering heavy weapons would lead to a nuclear winter,” said  Urnis Reinsalm. “Myths that it would take to long to train Ukrainian pilots on F series aircraft and it is technically difficult for Ukrainians to train on NATO equipment.”

But there are questions about whether Germany is central to European security, an opinion poll found that 52% of respondents to a poll believed that Germany should restrain itself when faced with a crisis, and 68% believed that Germany should not take the lead in a military roll in Europe. So the question has to be who takes a military lead in Europe, other than the EU, who along with the United States would prefer Germany take a lead in Europe’s security.

Sixty eight percent of those polled in Germany believed that there should be less reliance on China, which signifies Germany’s concerns about China’s policies and confrontation with Taiwan. Kevin Rudd, The President and Chief Executive of the Asia Society, a think tank based in New York argued that China’s world view had always been framed by ideology based on Marxist Leninism on the outside, but actually was a semi-capitalist state until Xi Jinping, returned China to an ideological construct of only a Marxist approach both structurally and economically, which now drives China’s and the CCP policy agenda.

What this means for the Chinese economy according to the analysis of the Asia Society, is that China has an ageing workforce and an ideology which gives more space to the state and less influence to the economy and state from the private sector; this also translates as more state interference in the management and the boards of private sector firms. “Since 2017, Xi Jinping has moved the pendulum closer to the state and away from the market,” Kevin Rudd asserted. The party report of the CCP pushes security into a dominant roll, and as such, since 2017, the economy has gone from 5% growth to 2% growth in 2022 according to the Asia Society. So the question has to be whether there is any possibility of opposition to Xi Jinping, Kevin Rudd argues that he and other China analysts cannot identify anyone who could or would challenge the direction or leadership of Xi Jinping.

With China asserting its position more strongly on the world stage, what exactly does this mean for Taiwan? According to Kevin Rudd there has been a shift from the idea set in 1981, that peaceful development, meant that China did not believe there would be any foreign wars that would impact or engage China, but for the first time this phrase has been dropped and in this years five year plan, new security preparations for the possibility of an armed conflict has been added to the 5 year plan documentation. Xi Jinping has inserted in the plan that the military should have increased capacity, larger combat forces and increased ability for a military victory. The plan stated that China could not become a global power without the reunification of Taiwan.

Kevin Rudd believes that Germany’s relationship with China is more significant than they realise and that China looks to Germany when it looks at Europe, which makes Germany a highly significant power in the eyes of China. “China and Russia, have developed a common strategic view, and if there is an assumption that Xi Jinping has a world view different from Russia, then think again.” But the reality is that German politicians see only one argument and that is business, Jurgen Hardt believes that there are trade deals to be had, rather than reason and always the ideas of business will be at the forefront of Chancellor Schultz’s raison d’etre when he travels to China at the beginning of November.

Germany needs to take a stance as one of Europe’s most important players, militarily, diplomatically and economically. The war with Ukraine is not going away, analysts believe the war could last a lot longer than is actually being assessed, and this needs to be at the forefront of German understanding. As a central cog to European power, Germany must learn to assess the realities of being a central element to Europe, but as a whole the reluctance of Germany to be central in the outlook of Europe, NATO and the West itself challenges its partners in the EU and NATO.