My Take | ‘Warrior queen’ Baerbock makes her last stand against Beijing

In January, German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock said her country was at war with Russia. Diplomatically, she misspoke. Her ministry had to clarify afterwards that providing aid to Ukraine didn’t make Germany a party to the conflict. Not even supplying weapons?

The incident did not reflect well on Baerbock’s competence or that of her ministry; German diplomatic performance has slipped significantly since Angela Merkel retired.

But Baerbock at least had the virtue of saying something true. In her mind, there is no doubt that Germany, and the European Union in general, is at war with Russia. The West, led by the United States, is fighting a proxy conflict in Ukraine. You are not, however, supposed to say it out loud.

That also tells you something about Baerbock’s hardline posture against China. In her mind, “the China threat” is Russia times 10. Therefore, mistakes supposedly made during the Merkel era with Russia must not be repeated with China. You need to keep that in mind when analysing the new China strategy of the German government, a blueprint that is supposed to guide its relations with China going forward.

My first thought was actually whether her three-party coalition government, which bickers over everything from the domestic budget and climate change commitments to, yes, this very delayed policy document on China, might not collapse any time soon, as it keeps hitting new lows in the polls. Apparently, only one in two Germans thinks the coalition will survive these policy clashes.

While the new “strategy” is heavy on hardline rhetoric and warnings against China as amplified by Baerbock, it lacks actual punishment and punitive policy – unlike the outright economic warfare of the Joe Biden administration.

It’s interesting to observe that while Baerbock gets all the media limelight, Chancellor Olaf Scholz only tweeted about the document.