Some netizens said today that German Chancellor Olaf Scholz visited China, but he didn't see what he was going to do?
We have been following German Chancellor Olaf Scholz's visit to China for the past few days, and today we have strung together his itinerary in the past few days and related news content, and suddenly realized that this is just a catwalk, and the real confrontation and transaction have already been completed.
Let's take a look at where Scholz has been in China these days and what he has done.
On April 14, Scholz led a German delegation to Chongqing, where they visited a local hydrogen powertrain plant of the Bosch Group and held talks with several leaders in Chongqing.
He also went to Chongqing's Liberation Monument, Kuixing Tower, Erling No. 2 Factory and other well-known landmarks to inspect China's economic outlook on the spot.
On April 15, the German delegation arrived in Shanghai, where Scholz met with representatives of the Chamber of Foreign Trade, held a discussion with students from Tongji University, and visited the innovation center of the German company Covestro.
He also met with several leaders in Shanghai, which shows that he still attaches great importance to the business environment of German companies.
On the evening of April 15, the German delegation arrived in Beijing. On April 16, Scholz mainly met with the two leaders.
Before going to Beijing, Scholz made many important statements, expressing the importance of cooperation with China in the economic field, emphasizing the importance of the German side, which can be said to be full of sincerity, and some people say that there is no toughness or even hostility at all.
Among them, his statement at Tongji University in Shanghai is particularly important, it is an interaction with students, some questions are more direct, Scholz is more fully expressed.
For example, when talking about Sino-German new energy vehicles, he said, "Don't be afraid of competition", and he made it clear that Germany welcomes fair competition from Chinese car companies and opposes trade protectionism.
The Germans were really pragmatic enough, and the three-day itinerary was packed. But if you look at what the hell they're doing, they don't seem to be doing anything.
We did not find much substantive content in the press release, for example, many people talked about the big package of Sino-German contracts, but there was none, some people talked about the Sino-German and Sino-European trade balance issues, and some people talked about the need to be tough on China, let alone the foreign media.
What we see is more of a show of goodwill and a statement by both sides, which is very harmonious and friendly.
In Scholz's speech at the meeting with the presidents, we still saw the key economic areas that the Germans want to cooperate with this time.
For example, to jointly address global challenges such as climate change, we can understand that this is mainly new energy vehicles and clean energy, including solar energy, wind energy, etc. It's easy to understand that in the last two years, the German manufacturing industry has been plagued by an energy crisis.
For example, Scholz also explicitly mentioned that Germany opposes protectionism and supports free trade.
This is very different from the fact that before he came to China, some European media, including Singapore's Lianhe Zaobao, reported that the German chancellor wanted to express a tough stance on China on trade issues.
Our leaders focused on traditional fields such as machinery manufacturing and automobiles, as well as emerging fields such as green transformation, digitalization and artificial intelligence, and both countries have great potential for win-win cooperation.
In fact, Sino-German cooperation has been heating up in recent years.
According to the data, as of November 2023, China has approved a total of 12,634 investment projects by German companies in China, with an actual amount of 42.4 billion US dollars, mainly in the fields of automobiles, chemicals, power generation equipment, transportation, steel, communications, etc.
There is no doubt that deepening cooperation between China and Germany in the economic, industrial and trade fields is the real purpose of Scholz's visit to China.
As for the fact that we do not see specific cooperation and projects in the news, this kind of thing will not be easily revealed until the moment when the dust settles on the signing of the painting.
Quite simply, the current international situation is so complicated, how do you know if there will be a third party who will deliberately sabotage it?
In the past, this kind of thing was not uncommon, and even agreements were signed, and there were cases where major countries directly grabbed orders on the grounds of security.
On the surface, the German Chancellor has turned his visit to China into a catwalk, and the actual cooperation will be gradually implemented on the sidelines or in the following months.
We can also understand that this kind of catwalk is not only for the Germans, but also for Europe, and even more for the Americans.
In this kind of thing, where you show up is important, and the statements of both parties are even more important.
The most important thing is, of course, how many major deals between China and Germany will be implemented.
Although it was a catwalk, before and after Scholz's visit to China, several major cooperation projects were implemented one after another.
For example, the joint venture project between Volkswagen and Xpeng Motors, Mercedes-Benz announced the full adoption of Huawei's intelligent driving technology, which happened recently, and the Germans obviously did some work in advance.
Two days ago, we also said that new energy vehicles and clean energy will be the focus, because these are the main challenges of the German economy at present.
Therefore, we can focus on the major cooperation projects between China and Germany, especially between companies, in the next few months.