On 26 September, elections were held in the German Bundestag. The election has attracted much attention because after this election, Merkel, who has been the German chancellor for 16 years, will officially retire and Germany will usher in a new chancellor. After 16 years as the commander of the German chariot, Merkel hopes that her political achievements will be recognized by the world and that her political line can continue.
However, the final election result will probably make Merkel less happy. Her coalition party, which is made up of both the CDU and CSU parties, received only 24.1 percent of the vote, while the SPD received 25.7 percent of the vote, while the remaining smaller parties received votes ranging from a few percentage points to a dozen percent.
The SPD appears to have won more votes in the election, but that doesn't mean spratly elected SPD's candidate for chancellorship, Scholz, is automatically elected as the next German chancellor. The position of Chancellor of Germany is voted by all the members of the new Bundestag, and the one who wins the most votes will be the German Chancellor, and this mp must have the support of more than half of the members of the Parliament. This means that even if all the elected MEMBERS of the SPD voted for Scholz, he would have received only a quarter of the votes in the Bundestag, which was not enough to make him elected Prime Minister.
Therefore, for the new German Bundestag, the long journey has just begun. Successful political parties entering Parliament need to negotiate, combine into coalitions, and gain the support of more than 50 per cent of the members of Parliament so that their candidates can become the next Prime Minister. Leading the negotiations is bound to be the SPD and the Alliance Party, the two big parties that received the most votes, and all they need to do is to exercise their mathematical minds, do a good job of arranging and combining topics, and make up 50% of the vote.
It's like playing a monopoly game, where only the one who has more wealth than all the remaining people combined can win. The current situation is that no political party in Germany can win the Monopoly game, so they can only combine with each other to form an alliance with more money than other players. After winning the game, the players in this alliance then distribute the common money according to their respective agreements.
Although the Coalition and its candidate, Laschet, are temporarily behind the SPD and its candidate, Scholz, as long as they are mathematically clear-headed and eloquent eloquent eloquent and able to win the cooperation of the remaining small parties, the Coalition party may still be victorious in forming a cabinet, while the SPD can only "win the election and lose the prime minister". In the coming months, the parties will have to play tricks, and the eventual selection of the chancellor and cabinet could have a huge impact on Germany's future policy orientation.
【I】
Merkel Orbit remains the only option
Every election to the German Bundestag means a mathematical problem of permutations and combinations. Political parties in Germany and scholars around the world had to pick up their secondary school mathematics and arrange and calculate them over and over again on scratch paper.
At the current rate of votes, in addition to the Union Party and the SPD, there are three parties that can enter the Bundestier: the Green Party, the Liberal Democratic Party and the AfD, which received 14.8%, 11.5% and 10.3% of the vote respectively. After a series of permutations and mathematical calculus, the two most likely options for a successful cabinet formation are the SPD, Greens and Liberal Democrats, and coalitions, Greens and Liberal Democrats.
This is so because German politics has pre-set two exclusionary conditions. First, the Alliance and the SPD were reluctant to unite. The Union party and the SPD are the two most powerful parties in German politics, and the two sides have been cooperating for many years. However, after many years of "integration," the two parties have become "disgusted with each other," looking at each other unfavorably, and both hope to abandon each other and go it alone. Therefore, before the start of this election, both sides have already put aside their harsh words, will not cooperate with each other, and both sides will find new joys. Second, AfD is a "big deal" and no one wants to cooperate with it. AfD is a recently emerging far-right party with a very extreme and dangerous political line. Even if they don't succeed in forming a cabinet, the remaining four parties are reluctant to cooperate with this annoying guy.
The remaining two combinations, the characteristics are very obvious, that is, the younger brother is the same, but the eldest brother has changed. The two younger brothers, the Greens and the Liberal Democratic Party, are one left and one right, the Greens are left-wing parties and the Liberal Democrats are right-wing parties. The two big brothers, the SPD and the Alliance Party, are also one left and one right, and the political line of the SPD is center-left, while the Coalition party is center-right. No matter which big brother takes the lead, the political line of the future German government will be closer to the middle, and this is what Merkel's predecessors have been trying to adhere to.
The spokesmen of the two big brothers, the SPD's prime ministerial candidate Scholz and the Union party's prime ministerial candidate Laschet, have repeatedly stressed during the election process that they will follow the path of the previous captain Merkel after being elected and continue to lead the German chariot on the "Merkel track". Naturally, Rashet is the successor of the former captain personally selected, while Scholz has worked with the former captain for many years and is very familiar with the work style and work route of the former captain. It is foreseeable that no matter which of the two successfully leads the formation of the political party, Merkel's political line will continue to be their guiding light, and the "Merkel Track" will remain the only track that German chariots can drive.
Although former captain Merkel is about to retire, her political line and legacy still wield enormous influence. In the 16 years that the former commander drove the German chariot, the car was driving faster and more steadily, the passenger experience was comfortable, and the results in the world race were also very good. At present, Germany is content to drive on this track, which is also an important reason why the two candidates for captains are trying to declare that they are "rooted in the red" and ensure that the future will follow the direction guided by the bright lights.
【II】
China policy will change steadily
Of course, although the Merkel Track is still the only track on which German tanks travel, this track is not without problems. In fact, the Merkel Track has shown signs of aging and loosening, and these signs are also reflected in this federal parliamentary election.
In this election, the phenomenon of political polarization is further reflected. Centrist parties are gaining less and less of an advantage, while the Greens and AfD, which are at opposite ends of the political spectrum, are gaining more and more votes. This is not only true in Germany, but throughout Europe. The financial crisis of 2008 and the refugee problem since 2014 have had a huge impact on Europe's political ecology in both economic and political fields, and Germany, as the leader of Europe, has been even more difficult to escape. For the foreseeable future, extreme political ideas will win more and more support in Germany, which will undoubtedly undermine the "Merkel track" of the middle way. Extremist politicians are hammering screws and wrenches outside the Merkel orbit, hoping to steer Germany and Europe as a whole in another direction.
Such political polarization will affect Germany's domestic and foreign policy in the future. In this election, the political differences between the parties are still concentrated on internal affairs, but in a few years or even a dozen years, as the influence of extreme parties further increases, their political differences are bound to extend to foreign policy, and at that time, China policy may become the focus of German attention and quarrels, because China is a different "target" from Western countries. Do the Left-Wing Greens, who place an extreme emphasis on individual freedom, see China as a "heretic"? The right-wing AfD is extremely xenophobic, will they see China as a "threat" to German culture and traditions? This is all possible.
In addition, the shift in China policy within the EU will in turn have an important impact on the China policy of the next German government. Germany has always been at the helm of the European Union, and Merkel is the pair of hands behind the helmsman. These hands are full of muscles and very strong, which makes the EU's foreign policy also full of Merkel's shadow. Therefore, for a long time, China-EU relations have maintained a good momentum of development, even if the "Uncle Sam" on the other side clamors for the EU to toughly confront China, Merkel still adopts a general attitude of ignoring it. However, with Merkel's departure, the strong hands behind Germany are gone, and Germany's influence on the EU is naturally weakened. Whether the next chancellor is Scholz or Rashet, there will certainly be no Merkel's "loud voice" and "strong arms" that will not exert enough influence on the EU.
As a result, even if the next German government insists on following the Merkel track, the EU may not necessarily follow this path. In the past two years, the EU's guns have gradually been aimed at China, and it has attacked China more than once on the epidemic and China's internal affairs, and the China-EU investment agreement and related China-EU economic cooperation have also been affected. As the influence of the Merkel Line on the EU declines, the EU may follow "Uncle Sam" to adopt a more radical China policy, and in the case of Germany's own lack of influence and resistance, Germany's China policy may also turn.
Therefore, for the foreseeable future, There is a high probability that Germany's China policy will change, and this change may take place in a radical, hard-line direction. Of course, in the short term, Germany's China policy will continue to move according to Merkel's design, and the next German chancellor with the halo of "Merkel's successor" will remain steady in china policy, and he will also try his best to maintain the stability of China-EU relations within the EU.
【III】
epilogue
The German Federal Parliamentary elections look like they are over, but they are far from over. At the end of the election, there was a math and language test waiting for the political parties, and only those that scored high in these two exams could finally win the German Chancellor's throne and form the next cabinet on the basis of their own party.
Despite the difficulty of the math and language tests, the direction of German policy in the short term is not difficult to predict. Merkel's former captain's track for Germany remains generally smooth, and German tanks will continue along it for a short time. However, in the process of moving forward, hidden worries and hidden dangers still exist, and the shift in German policy may be difficult to avoid in the future, but whether the magnitude of the turn is fine-tuned or large-scale is still a huge unknown.
In terms of China policy, the German government has remained steady in the short term. However, Germany's China policy will inevitably change with the turn of German policy, and China needs to always pay attention to the movement of the German train, and once it is headed in a direction unfavorable to China, China needs to react as soon as possible to avoid greater losses.
The author of this article is a contracted author of the Wall Breaking Investigation Bureau: Yipu
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