Baerbock believes that the EU should not passively assist China’s attempts to change the global order

“Many of our partners in Asia already feel how China is trying to replace the rules-based international order with its own rules. China claims that there are no rules, although it has ratified international treaties. The Europeans should not hide in a shell,” he said Annalena Baerbock, according to the Tagesschau.de website, on the occasion of the meeting of foreign ministers from the G7 Group, held in the Japanese city of Karuizawa.

Annalena Baerbock was in China a few days ago, where she stood out through a series of controversial statements regarding Beijing’s position towards Taiwan and the Russian military invasion of Ukraine. Baerbock stated that the European Union would not accept a military action by China in Taiwan, contradicting French President Emmanuel Macron, who called for avoiding involvement in such a conflict.

“A Chinese military operation in Taiwan would be a horror scenario, which would generate shock waves” on the economies of China and Germany. “We are following the tensions in the Taiwan Strait with great concern,” Baerbock said Friday, according to the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. In response, Qin Gang, the Chinese foreign minister, accused Western states of supporting Taiwan’s separatist aspirations.

In addition, Annalena Baerbock urged China to insist that Russia stop the war in Ukraine. “China must urge the Russian aggressor to stop the war. No other country has more influence on Russia than China, and the way it uses this influence directly affects the essential interests of Europe,” the German Foreign Minister claimed.

In fact, Baerbock claimed that the states of the European Union have a united position regarding the crisis in Taiwan, although the president of France, Emmanuel Macron, pleaded for the avoidance of involvement in a possible conflict. “We cannot stand idly by the tensions in the Taiwan Strait,” Baerbock said. The German Foreign Minister argued that the position of Paris must reflect “in a unified manner the policies of the European Union towards China”. “In the central issues, not only do we align our positions according to interests and values, but we also follow a common line at the political and strategic level,” Baerbock claimed.

A political group within the Social Democratic Party (SPD) criticized the German Foreign Minister’s approach to China, warning of the economic consequences of eroding trade relations with Beijing.

Emmanuel Macron recently stated, during a state visit to China, that the European Union must not strictly follow the policies of Washington or Beijing on the issue of Taiwan. “The worst thing would be for us Europeans to become imitators, to adapt to the American pace or China’s exaggerated reactions,” Macron said in an interview with the publications Les Échos and Politico, advocating for the consolidation of “strategic autonomy ” of the European Union.