Super-strange but happy – such people now are in the German government team

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and his ministers hold a document during a press conference on the day the cabinet presents the National security strategy.
Photo: REUTERS

Germans are very strange people – the United States is blowing up the Russian-German ‘Nord Stream’ gas pipeline, but Chancellor Scholz calls Russia “an enemy”. They are waiting in Berlin for very important visit of the Chinese government head and immediately accuse China of violations: “China acting 'counter to our interests'”. Nonsense! But these persons keep smiling as they are jovial and gay.

Germany singled out Russia as the “principal menace” to its security and signaled it wants to pursue a partnership with China despite the Asian nation increasingly behaving like a “rival and competitor”, informs Bloomberg.

In the country’s inaugural National security strategy published Wednesday, Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s government also enshrined NATO’s target of spending at least 2% of economic output annually on average on defense as an official policy goal.

“Today’s Russia is for now the most significant threat to peace and security in the Euro-Atlantic area,” the government wrote in the strategy paper, which runs to more than 70 pages and also addresses energy security and access to raw materials and technology.

Scholz and senior ministers, including Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock, Defense Minister Boris Pistorius and Finance Minister Christian Lindner, presented the security strategy to the media at a news conference in Berlin.

Germany also called China a “partner, competitor and systemic rival”, accusing Beijing of repeatedly acting against the European giant's interests in a bid to reshape the global order.

"China is trying in various ways to remould the existing rules-based international order, is asserting a regionally dominant position with ever more vigour, acting time and again counter to our interests and values," the strategy paper said.

The document prepared by Chancellor Olaf Scholz's coalition slammed China for putting regional stability and international security "under increasing pressure" and for disregarding human rights.

At the same time, it acknowledged that the Asian giant "remains a partner without whom many global challenges and crises cannot be resolved".

"That is why we must grasp the options and opportunities for cooperation in these fields in particular," the paper said.

Publication of the much-awaited strategy blueprint came just days before Chinese Prime Minister Li Qiang was due to visit Berlin.

Asked what message the document sent to Beijing, Scholz said "the point is that China will continue to grow economically and that China's integration into world trade and world economic relations should not be impaired."

…They are giving out solutions that are so strange, if not inadequate. All this is a real ‘doublethink’ straight from Orwell…

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