China Visit ‘More Than Shocking’, Says German Foreign Minister

This Nov. 10, 1989 file photo shows Berliners singing and dancing on top of The Berlin Wall in celebration of the opening of the East German-West German border. AP Photo/Thomas Kienzle

Germany’s Foreign Minister, Annalena Baerbock, has said that China’s communist regime is continuing to act more aggressively internationally while increasing domestic oppression. Elements of her visit to China this week were “more than shocking,” Baerbock said during parliamentary questions in Berlin on April 19.

Baerbock’s visit to China came just days before her meeting with other foreign ministers of the G7 nations in the Japanese city of Hiroshima. A communique from the ministers affirmed “the importance of peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait” for the security of the international community.

China Visit

When meeting with Baerbock in Beijing on April 15, the Chinese communist regime’s top foreign affairs official, Wang Yi, asked Germany to support the reunification of mainland China and Taiwan—as the official claimed that the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) had previously supported the “unification of East Germany and West Germany.”

However, Taiwan’s de-facto ambassador to Germany, Shieh Jhy-wey, rejected the CCP’s use of German reunification as an analogy for Taiwan. The principal China-policy adviser to former U.S. Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, also rubbished the idea: Miles Yu, now a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, indicated that East and West Germany made democratic decisions to reunite, while the Chinese communist regime has repeatedly threatened to use force against Taiwan.

The CCP’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs reported that when Wang Yi, Director of the regime’s Foreign Affairs Office, met with Baerbock, he stated that China had supported the reunification of Germany, and that he “hopes and believes that Germany will also support China’s great cause of peaceful reunification.” Wang also said: “Taiwan’s return to China is an important part of the post-WWII international order.” Baerbock did not respond directly to Wang’s remarks on Taiwan.

German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock responds to questions from fellow parliamentarians at a federal government question and answer session in Berlin on April 19, 2023. Maja Hitij/Getty Images

At a joint press conference with the CCP’s Foreign Minister Qin Gang during her Beijing visit, Baerbock said that “conflicts may only be resolved peacefully.”

She said that “unilaterally changing the status quo across the Taiwan Strait—and, in particular, by force—would be, for us as Europeans, unacceptable.” The German Foreign Minister called on all parties to “not escalate the tension.”

Unification After The Fall of The CCP

Shieh Jhy-wey, Representative of the Republic of China’s (Taiwan) Representative Office in Berlin, posted a statement on his Facebook account, pointing out the fallacies in the CCP’s claims surrounding the reunification of East and West Germany.

“In 1990, the unification of Germany was the free and democratic West Germany unifying the authoritarian East Germany that was under a one-party dictatorship,” Shieh wrote, which he said followed “the fall of the Berlin Wall and the East German communist regime in 1989 … Let’s see when the CCP regime collapses, and then talk about the reunification of mainland China and Taiwan in the second year.”

Miles Yu , director of the China Center at the Hudson Institute and previously the chief adviser on China policy for the U.S. State Department under the Trump administration, pointed out the hypocrisy of Wang’s claim. While China’s communist regime recognized both East and West Germany as independent nations, it refuses to recognize Taiwan, and repeatedly states it will annex the island by force, if necessary.

Yu wrote in a Twitter post: “China (the CCP) supported the coexistence of East Germany and West Germany, giving both of them diplomatic recognition.”

However, “the reunification of Germany was democratically approved by the peoples of the two countries, and neither side had threatened the other by force.”

Shieh said that Baerbock has repeatedly and clearly told the CCP regime one thing, namely that Germany—like the European Union, the United States, Japan, and other G7 countries—cannot accept the use of any force by the CCP to change the status quo across the Taiwan Strait.

Shieh pointed out that in addition to the traditional reason for the free world to support Taiwan, which is based on the “common moral level (upon which democracies support each other),” there’s now another reason on the ”common interest level.

“Fifty percent of the global trade and logistics freight goes through the Taiwan Strait,” Shieh said. “Once the situation in the (Taiwan Strait) changes, it will bring extremely serious consequences to every country in the world. Such a world economic crisis will also hit China (the CCP) and Germany.” Shieh said that Baerbock also mentioned another reason why Germany cannot accept the CCP’s takeover of Taiwan: “Seventy percent of the world’s semiconductors come from Taiwan.”

Shieh added a third reason for the democratic world to support Taiwan. “Based on Taiwan’s key position in the Indo-Pacific strategic alliance, the free world cannot allow Taiwan to fall into the hands of an authoritarian China—no matter what!”

Zhong Yuan and Lin Yan contributed to this report.