- HOME
- 독일교육연구정보
http://service.spiegel.de/cache/international/0,1518,druck-349133,00.htmlGetting Cozy with the Dragon
By Claus Christian Malzahn
Gerhard Schroeder's lonely battle to lift the European Union's arms embargo against China is hardly out of character: after all he's never been one to worry much about the oppression of people under communist dictators. But it is Foreign Minister Fischer's fate which is one of the most regrettable outcomes of the ruckus.
German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder has never been one of those politicians who put the issue of human rights at the center of their political ethics. Back in the 1980s, when the former opposition leader of the state of Lower Saxony peered over the East German border, he didn't perceive it as being a regime that used guns, spies and barbed wire to deprive its subjects of the kind of political freedom that was taken for granted by people in the West. For many in the left-wing of the Social Democrats at the time, East Germany was considered an irreversible result of World War II, something you just had to accept.
But a look at Schroeder's historical comments and letters suggests he straddled the fence between just accepting and embarrassingly buttering up the communists. Just look at the way he addressed the German Democratic Republic's communist leaders: In 1985, Schroeder described Honecker, the then East German dictator, as a "deeply honest man." Then, one year later, Schroeder sent a letter to Honecker's deputy, informally writing: "Dear Egon Krenz: I will certainly need the endurance you have wished me in this busy election year. But you will certainly also need great strength and good health for your People's Chamber election." Of course, there were no democratic elections in East Germany.
In view of these sentiments, one can only imagine the kind of resoluteness and determination with which the chancellor reminds Beijing about human rights and democracy during his visits there today as Germany's leader.
Even as late as June 1989, as the GDR was coming unglued and the "honest" dictator and "Dear Egon" were losing their subjects, who were fleeing en masse over the Hungarian and Czechoslovakian borders, Schroeder still didn't get it. Just five days before the Wall fell, he offered this gem: "After 40 years of West Germany, we shouldn't lie to a new generation about the prospects for re-unification. There aren't any."
He couldn't have been further off the mark at the time. But ignorant behavior towards anti-communist civil rights and freedom movements has been one of the few aspects of Schroeder's political career that has remained consistent.
One need look no further than his current China policy to see how that tradition continues today. In light of Beijing's recent and very public military threats against Taiwan, Schroeder's insistence on lifting the weapons embargo against China is no less than scandalous. Of course the China of today is no longer the same country as it was in 1989, when the Chinese government crushed the democratic student revolt with tanks. But the difference today isn't that China is freer, more liberal or has fewer political prisoners. It's that there is virtually no democratic movement whatsoever. After the anti-democratic counter-revolution by the communists in 1989, most of the civil rights activists who didn't leave the country or get sent to prison seemed to cave in. And they've had virtually no opportunity to spark a new movement since.
By chumming up to the regime with his vocal, go-it-alone attitude, Schroeder is further complicating this situation. These activists have long been able to rely on the west to exert pressure on Beijing, but by cozying up to the Communist Party leaders, Schroeder is further reducing the already sparse negotiating leeway available to China's remaining human rights activists. His offensive dedication to Beijing, which he is peddling here as European economic policy, will have further consequences. It will harm his already tarnished foreign minister, Joschka Fischer of the Green Party, whose role in German foreign policy has already been put in a state of suspended animation by the ongoing Eastern European visas scandal and whose standing in his party has diminished as a result of the conflict over the EU China arms embargo. The Greens have expressed their objections to Schroeder's weapons policies, but the chancellor has only scoffed at them.
Where, exactly, German foreign policy is supposed to be headed -- in view of its tacking between Moscow, Paris and Beijing -- is anybody's guess. Does the chancellor even know? After all, he seems more inclined to take out stock options on the future with his brothers-in-arms in China than to focus on solid contemporary politics. But one thing has become certain: Damaging the trans-Atlantic relationship has become a favorite diplomatic staple of the current German government. Washington argues, with good reason, against a loosening of the embargo against China. Still, just a few weeks before US President George W. Bush visited Germany, the chancellor continued to march into foreign policy nirvana. Any direction seemed to be okay -- at least as long as the chancellor's compass didn't point toward Washington.
The idea of a German seat on the United Nations Security Council and the German hope of being able to jury rig a new world order that would look past the US with the help of a more active Russia and China, are two fixed points of this U-turn in the wrong direction. Despite this grotesque departure from tradition, the government hasn't engendered much resistance -- but that's probably the result of the anti-American popular sentiment that this government has fostered in its citizens in the name of emancipating itself from its past.
This isn't just a question of political taste. Schroeder clearly wants to create a new country -- at least in the way it sees its foreign policy. Meanwhile, his foreign minister, Fischer, has just stood by idly as the chancellor took a torch to the foundations of the trans-Atlantic relationship and, in doing so, fundamentally changed Germany's political architecture. Just before the Kosovo war in 1998, Fischer himself said that the trans-Atlantic relationship for Germany is like a life-insurance policy for democracy. Now that seems forgotten.
Not too long ago, the German journalist Arnulf Baring demanded: "People: To the barricades!" In light of the blatant announcements by the chancellor, that he neither needs Washington nor his own parliament for his China policies, it is high time to repeat that command.
By Claus Christian Malzahn
Gerhard Schroeder's lonely battle to lift the European Union's arms embargo against China is hardly out of character: after all he's never been one to worry much about the oppression of people under communist dictators. But it is Foreign Minister Fischer's fate which is one of the most regrettable outcomes of the ruckus.
German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder has never been one of those politicians who put the issue of human rights at the center of their political ethics. Back in the 1980s, when the former opposition leader of the state of Lower Saxony peered over the East German border, he didn't perceive it as being a regime that used guns, spies and barbed wire to deprive its subjects of the kind of political freedom that was taken for granted by people in the West. For many in the left-wing of the Social Democrats at the time, East Germany was considered an irreversible result of World War II, something you just had to accept.
But a look at Schroeder's historical comments and letters suggests he straddled the fence between just accepting and embarrassingly buttering up the communists. Just look at the way he addressed the German Democratic Republic's communist leaders: In 1985, Schroeder described Honecker, the then East German dictator, as a "deeply honest man." Then, one year later, Schroeder sent a letter to Honecker's deputy, informally writing: "Dear Egon Krenz: I will certainly need the endurance you have wished me in this busy election year. But you will certainly also need great strength and good health for your People's Chamber election." Of course, there were no democratic elections in East Germany.
In view of these sentiments, one can only imagine the kind of resoluteness and determination with which the chancellor reminds Beijing about human rights and democracy during his visits there today as Germany's leader.
Even as late as June 1989, as the GDR was coming unglued and the "honest" dictator and "Dear Egon" were losing their subjects, who were fleeing en masse over the Hungarian and Czechoslovakian borders, Schroeder still didn't get it. Just five days before the Wall fell, he offered this gem: "After 40 years of West Germany, we shouldn't lie to a new generation about the prospects for re-unification. There aren't any."
He couldn't have been further off the mark at the time. But ignorant behavior towards anti-communist civil rights and freedom movements has been one of the few aspects of Schroeder's political career that has remained consistent.
One need look no further than his current China policy to see how that tradition continues today. In light of Beijing's recent and very public military threats against Taiwan, Schroeder's insistence on lifting the weapons embargo against China is no less than scandalous. Of course the China of today is no longer the same country as it was in 1989, when the Chinese government crushed the democratic student revolt with tanks. But the difference today isn't that China is freer, more liberal or has fewer political prisoners. It's that there is virtually no democratic movement whatsoever. After the anti-democratic counter-revolution by the communists in 1989, most of the civil rights activists who didn't leave the country or get sent to prison seemed to cave in. And they've had virtually no opportunity to spark a new movement since.
By chumming up to the regime with his vocal, go-it-alone attitude, Schroeder is further complicating this situation. These activists have long been able to rely on the west to exert pressure on Beijing, but by cozying up to the Communist Party leaders, Schroeder is further reducing the already sparse negotiating leeway available to China's remaining human rights activists. His offensive dedication to Beijing, which he is peddling here as European economic policy, will have further consequences. It will harm his already tarnished foreign minister, Joschka Fischer of the Green Party, whose role in German foreign policy has already been put in a state of suspended animation by the ongoing Eastern European visas scandal and whose standing in his party has diminished as a result of the conflict over the EU China arms embargo. The Greens have expressed their objections to Schroeder's weapons policies, but the chancellor has only scoffed at them.
Where, exactly, German foreign policy is supposed to be headed -- in view of its tacking between Moscow, Paris and Beijing -- is anybody's guess. Does the chancellor even know? After all, he seems more inclined to take out stock options on the future with his brothers-in-arms in China than to focus on solid contemporary politics. But one thing has become certain: Damaging the trans-Atlantic relationship has become a favorite diplomatic staple of the current German government. Washington argues, with good reason, against a loosening of the embargo against China. Still, just a few weeks before US President George W. Bush visited Germany, the chancellor continued to march into foreign policy nirvana. Any direction seemed to be okay -- at least as long as the chancellor's compass didn't point toward Washington.
The idea of a German seat on the United Nations Security Council and the German hope of being able to jury rig a new world order that would look past the US with the help of a more active Russia and China, are two fixed points of this U-turn in the wrong direction. Despite this grotesque departure from tradition, the government hasn't engendered much resistance -- but that's probably the result of the anti-American popular sentiment that this government has fostered in its citizens in the name of emancipating itself from its past.
This isn't just a question of political taste. Schroeder clearly wants to create a new country -- at least in the way it sees its foreign policy. Meanwhile, his foreign minister, Fischer, has just stood by idly as the chancellor took a torch to the foundations of the trans-Atlantic relationship and, in doing so, fundamentally changed Germany's political architecture. Just before the Kosovo war in 1998, Fischer himself said that the trans-Atlantic relationship for Germany is like a life-insurance policy for democracy. Now that seems forgotten.
Not too long ago, the German journalist Arnulf Baring demanded: "People: To the barricades!" In light of the blatant announcements by the chancellor, that he neither needs Washington nor his own parliament for his China policies, it is high time to repeat that command.
