European countries are preparing to scale up the monitoring of potential new coronavirus variants from China, as Spain becomes the second EU state to bring back mandatory testing at airports in response to Beijing’s rapid rollback of anti-infection measures. Spain on Friday followed Italy’s lead by requiring arrivals from China to show a negative test result, though unlike Rome it makes exceptions for those who can prove they are fully vaccinated. At a press conference announcing the new measures, the Spanish health minister Carolina Darias also said she was pushing…
Tag: Germany
Star-crossed: Mercedes faces dilemma over dependence on Russia and China
A brand new, gleaming Mercedes vehicle rolls off the production line roughly every three minutes at the carmaker’s Rastatt plant in south-western Germany. A total of 185,000 of its upmarket A-Class, B-Class and all-electric EQA cars were assembled here last year in the factory, close to the French border. They are then taken by road, rail and ship to their new owners, perhaps to zip through European capitals, Chinese cities, or along California’s coastal roads. Mercedes-Benz Group (MBG) produces hundreds of thousands such vehicles a year from eight German factories:…
NATO Nations Grow More Receptive to U.S. Pleas to Confront China
The discussion on China marked a shift toward a harder line on the challenges and threats it represents, especially among foreign ministers from previously more ambivalent countries, like Italy, Belgium, Spain and Portugal, some of whom called for less talk and more action to build a China strategy. Areas of concern included investment screening to protect key industries, infrastructure, cyber, technology and intellectual property, especially as countries are feeling the reach of China domestically and fear the West may be falling behind in important areas like artificial intelligence. The focus…
The Guardian view on Olaf Scholz’s visit to Beijing: treading a fine line | Editorial
The brevity of Olaf Scholz’s one-day visit to China, where he will meet President Xi Jinping on Friday, means that there will be little scope for the kind of colourful photo-ops that his predecessor, Angela Merkel, enjoyed during 12 visits to Germany’s most important trading partner. For Mr Scholz, who becomes the first G7 leader to visit Beijing since the beginning of the Covid pandemic, that is just as well. The optics of the German chancellor’s trip have already proved controversial enough. Mr Scholz is travelling with the traditional bevy…
Did Germany Learn From Its Russia Trouble? The Test May Come in China.
BERLIN — Germany understood the trap of strategic vulnerability that it had laid for itself in relying so heavily on Russian gas only after Moscow invaded Ukraine and turned off the spigot. But whether that lesson has been fully absorbed may be tested elsewhere: China. As Chancellor Olaf Scholz prepares for his first visit to Beijing on Thursday, a planeload of executives in tow, Germany’s intelligence chiefs and allies are warning him against pursuing business as usual with a China that is saber-rattling in the Taiwan Strait. Were tensions to…
We need to talk about Xi Jinping: G7’s discord over powerful trading partner
Western powers in the G7 group of nations are failing to coordinate their China strategies, senior western officials admit, adding that the need to do so has been given sharp impetus by Xi Jinping’s consolidation of power at this month’s Communist party congress. The G7’s poor coordination reflects a deep disagreement, also reflected within the EU, about whether dialogue and trade with China have a future if Beijing is seen as an existential threat that requires strict strategic controls on economic ties. Chinese aggression At the week-long Communist party congress,…
Leading economies sliding into recession as Ukraine war cuts growth, OECD finds
The world’s leading economies are sliding into recession as the global energy and inflation crises sparked by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine cut growth by more than previously forecast, according to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). A dependency on expensive gas for heavy industry and home heating will plunge Germany, Italy and the UK into a long period of recession after global growth was projected by the OECD to slow to 2.2% in 2023 from a forecast in June of 2.8%. With the global economy needing to grow…
Xinjiang cotton found in Adidas, Puma and Hugo Boss tops, researchers say
Researchers say they have found traces of Xinjiang cotton in shirts and T-shirts made by Adidas, Puma and Hugo Boss, appearing to contradict the German clothing companies’ promises to revise their supply chains after allegations of widespread forced labour in the Chinese region. Recent reports have suggested more than half a million people from minority ethnic groups such as the Uyghurs have been coerced into picking cotton in Xinjiang, which provides more than 80% of China’s and a fifth of the global production of cotton. The US banned cotton imports…
Your Wednesday Briefing: Beijing’s Mass Testing Plan
Good morning. We’re covering Beijing’s scramble to quash the Omicron variant, Germany’s pivot to supplying Ukraine with heavy weaponry and a brownface controversy roiling Hong Kong. Mass testing in Beijing Faced with a growing number of coronavirus infections across Beijing, city officials are trying to test most of the Chinese capital’s 22 million residents in the hope of avoiding the pain of imposing a citywide lockdown like in Shanghai. Beijing is ordering mass testing across the city more quickly than in Shanghai, where officials started testing on a similar scale…
Fast, precise, too tough? Lockdowns risk stalling China’s economy
Veteran lorry driver Meng Hong has become an unlikely social media star in recent weeks. Since March, his short video talks about life on the road during Covid outbreaks on Douyin, the Chinese version of TikTok, have won him millions of likes. Most of Meng’s videos had been about “spreading positive energy” as he wrote in his account description. But on 13 April, he began to complain about what happened when drivers transported goods to Shanghai. “After we have delivered food, we were quarantined [after we left] or locked down…