Don’t isolate China, German chancellor Olaf Scholz warns West
- Olaf Scholz, in an essay in Foreign Affairs magazine, cautions that ‘China’s rise does not warrant isolating Beijing or curbing cooperation’
- Scholz bolsters support for democracies around the world but says ‘dialogue and cooperation must extend beyond the democratic comfort zone’
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has warned against isolating China, saying Western democracies must “avoid the temptation to once again divide the world into blocs”.
Writing in the policy magazine Foreign Affairs, Scholz said that the West must find a way to accommodate China and other autocratic states, while also bolstering support for democracies around the world.
“China’s rise does not warrant isolating Beijing or curbing cooperation. But neither does China’s growing power justify claims for hegemony in Asia and beyond,” Scholz wrote in a lengthy piece titled “The Global Zeitenwende: How to Avoid a New Cold War in a Multipolar Era”.
“No country is the backyard of any other – and that applies to Europe as much as it does to Asia and every other region,” he added.
Zeitenwende is the German word for “turning point”, and was used to describe Germany’s shift to a more expansive security, defence and foreign policy in the aftermath of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Scholz warned against creating a new Cold War, and said that reports of the death of globalisation were wide of the mark.
“Many assume we are on the brink of an era of bipolarity in the international order. They see the dawn of a new cold war approaching, one that will pit the United States against China. I do not subscribe to this view,” he said.