German government to unveil China strategy document on Thursday

The German government plans to release its highly anticipated China strategy document on Thursday.

German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock announced the strategy’s pending release on Wednesday while attending the NATO summit in Lithuania.

The China strategy document follows Germany’s first-ever National Security Strategy, which was released in mid-June.

The China strategy will convey the message “that we want to live in peace and freedom together with all partners in the world, with all countries in the world – but that we are not naïve at the same time,” Baerbock said.

Baerbock said that a lesson from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is that one-sided dependencies in foreign relationships must be reduced.

The Russian invasion exposed Germany’s dependence on Russian gas, dramatically increased energy prices and forced the German government to rapidly reverse course on energy policy.

Baerbock suggested that the massive trade dependence of Germany’s export-based economy on China should be reduced.

Germany’s 70-page National Security Strategy, which was the product of months of deliberations, described China as a partner, competitor and systemic rival.

There are tensions within Germany’s governing coalition over how to approach relations with China. Bearbock’s Green Party has advocated for a tougher course towards Beijing than that favoured by Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s Social Democrats.

Disagreements over how to handle China were most recently on display after Scholz pushed through the sale to a Chinese state-owned company of partial stake in a container terminal at the port of Hamburg over objections from the Greens.