Germany spells out conditional ‘One-China’ policy
By Manish Anand
New Delhi, July 13: In the first ever strategy paper on China, Germany has underlined that ‘One-China’ policy is conditional to Beijing submitting to peace. Germany has taken a grim view of China’s fast deteriorating human rights record in Tibet and Xinjiang, while spotlighting assertive Chinese hegemony in the Indo-Pacific.
Germany has devoted extensively in its strategic paper the muscle-flexing by the Xi Jinping-led Communist regime by exploiting its economic clout to serve the political interests and ambitions. Yet, Germany has stated that Europe will seek out China for actions on global agenda of climate change and others, while stressing that the economic rivalry is now a new order.
“The One-China policy remains the basis for our actions. We only have diplomatic relations with the People’s Republic of China. Germany has close and good relations with Taiwan in many areas and wants to expand them. As part of the EU’s One-China policy, we support issue specific involvement on the part of democratic Taiwan in international organisations. The status quo of the Taiwan Strait may only be changed by peaceful means and mutual consent. Military escalation would also affect German and European interests,” stated the strategic paper released by Germany on China.
The exhaustive strategic paper has come in the wake of the German Chancellor Olaf Scholz rushing to Beijing to fete Xi on his assuming the third term in the presidency and the subsequent dawning of the hard realities that China had been making windfall gains out of the Russia-Ukraine War by blunting several of the sanctions of the western nations on Moscow. China’s decision to further its relations with Russia has direct security implications for Germany, added the paper.
“The expansion of the role played by the Communist Party of China and the focus on security and stability have been accompanied by backsliding on civil and political rights, including freedom of the press and opinion. Ethnic and religious minorities’ cultural expression and identity are also under pressure; examples of this include human rights violations in the Autonomous Regions of Xinjiang and Tibet reported by the United Nations, among other bodies,” added the strategic paper, while giving primacy to the blatant subjugation of the people in the two large restive regions, which reject the Chinese rule.
It also stated that “contrary to its pledges and commitments under international law, China has eroded Hong Kong’s autonomy, curtailed civil liberties in the region and reduced its people’s scope for action in the political sphere”.
“The rules-based international order is the foundation for balancing interests fairly between large, medium sized and small countries and the prerequisite for peaceful coexistence. It is inclusive, not targeted against anyone, and facilitates cooperation with every country that respects its fundamental principles,” stated the strategic paper in a veiled condemnation of the muscle flexing of China with its neighbours.
German strategic paper also underlined Chinese assertions in the Indo-Pacific, flagging attempts for “regional hegemony and in this process calling principles of international law into question”. “It is deliberately bringing its economic power to bear to achieve its political goals. China’s relations with many countries in its neighbourhood and beyond have deteriorated significantly as a result of this robust approach,” the German strategic paper on China grimly noted.
Stating that China combines great economic, technological, military and political power, the German strategic paper noted that Beijing spends the most on defence after the United States and already has the largest maritime force in the world by number of ships and submarines.
“China’s conduct and decisions have caused the elements of rivalry and competition in our relations to increase in recent years. This has prompted the Federal Government to recalibrate its cooperation with China and its approach to the challenges bound up with this, both bilaterally and in the European context,” stated the paper.
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