Germany refuses to turn a 'blind eye' to China, teams up with Australia
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German officers are expected to be deployed with the Australian Navy and a German frigate will patrol the Indian Ocean under Berlin's plan to manage China's influence in the Indo-Pacific region.
Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, the German Defence Minister, said the Indo-Pacific had become crucial to the world’s well-being.
"We believe that Germany needs to mark its position in the region," she said in an exclusive interview.
Kramp-Karrenbauer, popularly known by her initials AKK, said that Europe had become increasingly aware of China's economic agenda and geopolitical tactics in the past year.
"China is an important trading partner for Germany and we have strong economic ties which are in the interest of both sides," she said.
"At the same time, we do not turn a blind eye on unequal investment conditions, aggressive appropriation of intellectual property, state-subsidised distortion of competition or attempts to exert influence by means of loans and investments."
In 2018 the 58-year-old became the secretary general of the Christian Democratic Union, Germany's largest political party. Subsequently she was touted as a successor to Chancellor Angela Merkel. However, in February she announced she would not run for chancellor in the expected 2021 election and would relinquish the party leadership.
Kramp-Karrenbauer is the first German minister to confirm publicly that restrictions on Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei would effectively exclude the company from Germany's 5G network.
"Germany is, in principle, open to investment from all sides. But if the technology offered to us is not beyond reproach, it cannot be used," she said.
"The political ramifications would simply be too grave. China is a country that understands very well the political dimension of IT networks and data flows. I am sure our counterparts in Beijing understand that we Europeans can only operate technology we trust."
Australia was the first western country to ban Huawei over national security concerns in 2018. The United States and Britain have since followed suit.
Kramp-Karrenbauer will speak at a virtual Australian Strategic Policy Institute event co-hosted by the Konrad-Adenauer Stiftung foundation on Thursday evening alongside Australia’s Defence Minister Linda Reynolds.
She said a German naval presence in the Indo-Pacific would help to safeguard the rules-based international order. The region stretches from the Indian Ocean to the Coral Sea and includes India, China, Japan and Australia.
"We hope to be able to deploy next year," she said. "We will be spending more on defence in 2021 than in 2020 despite the fact that [coronavirus] has hit our budgets. Now the key is to translate this into real muscle."
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