Joe Biden got Germany in his first speech Not a word mentioned as US President before the UN General Assembly, and yet he said something that could put the future government of the Federal Republic in distress. Recently, Biden has often spoken of dividing the world into democratic and autocratic states. China in particular belongs to the second category. He did not mention China by name in his speech either, but he spoke extensively about the country.
China was meant when he spoke of countries guilty of theft of intellectual property. China was meant when he said that the future belongs to those who give their citizens air to breathe, not those who suffocate them under a web of surveillance. And China was also meant when Biden said he did not want a new Cold War, a world that falls apart into rival blocs.
Standing together on the right side of the story
That last sentence was probably the most interesting of the speech, because the question that needs to be asked is whether that is exactly what Biden wants: a world of blocks. He has so clearly described China as the USA’s greatest rival that it is difficult to imagine rapprochement in the foreseeable future. The relationship between President Xi Jinping and the US President is so cold that no face-to-face meeting has even been suggested since Biden took office.
Joe Biden never tires of emphasizing that the future belongs to democracies. In his view, the authoritarian rulers are on the wrong side of history. For him it follows that those have to stand together on the right side. That is what he said again before the UN.
In principle, this is a matter of course. Of course, the Western world has to stand together and have the courage to talk about freedom of expression in its dealings with China, about the fate of the Uyghurs, about China’s aggressive policies in the South China Sea. About the situation in Hong Kong and the security of Taiwan. But German policy on China has always been ambiguous.
Yes, human rights are “addressed”, but that has hardly any consequences. That, in turn, has a lot to do with the German economy, which does not want to mess its business with China just because the country is a tightly run dictatorship. The German auto industry in particular has no problems doing business with the, pardon, car-friendly and autocratic state.
Can Germany continue to appear Janus-faced towards China?
Biden doesn’t want a cold war, that can be taken from him. But he wants polarization. He wants a dichotomy, he wants you and us. For him, this is the most important foreign policy topic of his presidency. For the next Chancellor, this could mean that sooner rather than later a decision has to be made, namely actually which side you are on.
So far, the US has accepted, albeit with unease, that the Germans have always been Janus-faced for economic reasons when it comes to China. Everything in Germany revolves around the election campaign and above all about Germany itself. But soon, and that is the hidden core of the UN speech by the American president, Joe Biden could ask his allies and thus Germany to swear an oath.