Recently, foreign media reported that German Chancellor Olaf Scholz will visit China again this month, and will bring a large business delegation.
The German Chancellor personally led a team to do business, which vividly embodied the pragmatic spirit of the Germans. Last time, it was also a huge lineup, and now it is coming again, what is the main purpose of the Germans this time? What is the difference between it and Aunt Yellen in the United States?
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz will visit China later this month, his second visit to China since taking office in 2022, Reuters reported on April 4.
The report also said that Mercedes-Benz CEO Kang Linsong, BMW Group Chairman Zipzer, Bayer Group CEO Anderson, Siemens CEO Boleren and others will join the lineup for the visit.
The German Chancellor led a large business delegation to visit China at this time has three important backgrounds.
First, since last year, Germany has suffered a great setback in following the United States in promoting "de-risking".
As a result, the Germans found that this strategy did not hold any point, and that Germany could not do without China in the economic and trade fields, and many German companies said that it was impossible for them to leave the Chinese market.
Moreover, in cooperation with China, the Germans took advantage of it, not only buying high-quality and low-cost goods from China, but also staining the light of China's supply chain.
In the second context, Scholz and his SPD are under tremendous pressure for political and economic development.
In particular, former Chancellor Angela Merkel is preparing to make a comeback, and the far-right AfD is also in the limelight.
At the same time, as the locomotive of the EU economy, the German economy was seriously affected by the Russia-Ukraine conflict, and the German economy turned out to be negative last year.
Thirdly, the automotive industry, the core pillar of the German economy, is facing tremendous competition and transformation pressure.
At the beginning of this year, Germany's Mercedes-Benz and BMW successively announced the postponement of their electric vehicle plans.
The transition is the general trend, and it is not that they have to give up, for example, Mercedes-Benz said that it will postpone the electrification target by five years, and it is expected that by 2030, the proportion of new energy sales will reach 50%.
This is because German car manufacturers have encountered setbacks in the research and development of new energy vehicles, and the developed products have fallen behind, which neither has the ability to lead in technology nor has lost its cost advantage.
Therefore, the top priority for German automobiles is to strengthen cooperation with their Chinese counterparts in technology and supply chains.
Some experts believe that the EU launched a countervailing investigation on Chinese automobiles in October last year, and its fundamental intention is to speed up the construction of Chinese automobiles in Europe, and at the same time drive China's auto supply chain to Europe.
Germany's Mercedes-Benz BMW can cooperate with China's supply chain nearby.
So, at that time, the CEO of Mercedes-Benz opposed the EU investigation, saying that he wanted to compete fairly with Chinese car brands.
At that time, many people thought that he was saying that China's opponents had unfair competition practices, but now they know that he is saying that German cars have a chance to be on par with their Chinese opponents in terms of technology and supply chain.
In addition, in October last year, Stellantis, the third-largest auto giant in Europe, took the lead and directly invested in China's Leapmotor at a price of 1.5 billion euros, which made Mercedes-Benz BMW a step slower.
Against this backdrop and under pressure, Scholz led the team again.
Therefore, we say that the German Chancellor personally led the team to do business, which vividly reflected the pragmatism of the Germans, while the Americans were completely different.
In the past two days, some people praised in the video, saying that they saw U.S. Treasury Secretary Yellen carrying a satchel on her left shoulder and a laptop in her right hand, walking off the plane alone, which shows how amiable this aunt is, this is a practical person.
But, on the contrary, we think this is a very clear manifestation of the arrogance of the Americans, who always put politics first, hold the stick high, and have a false head instead of talking to you about business.
The arrogance of American politicians makes them always mavericks and unwilling to bring business teams with them.
The Americans have fallen into a circle that they have carefully woven and cannot extricate themselves from.
Just when the Americans were still doing the same old thing, this time the Germans took the lead.
Therefore, only by seeing the reality clearly can we seize the opportunity to develop better. Compared with the three major American car companies, we are more optimistic about the German Mercedes-Benz BMW.