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Diplomacy
OpinionComment
Markus Heidingsfelder
Markus Heidingsfelder

Opinion | Germany should review its own human rights record before taking the moral high-ground against China

  • New German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock has vowed toughness against Beijing while anti-Asian racism and pandemic mishandling go unchecked at home
  • Both Germany and Europe should instead take steps to overcome current global divisions

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Germany’s new foreign minister, Annalena Baerbock, has vowed to take a tougher stance against China than the country’s previous administration. Photo: Bloomberg
Markus Heidingsfelder
Germany’s new foreign minister, Green party co-leader Annalena Baerbock, recently prescribed a course of “dialogue and toughness” for China. German tabloid BILD applauded her with an almost satirical headline: “Baerbock makes dictators tremble”.
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Why should they? Still, if Baerbock keeps her promise and tries to be tough on Beijing by making moral accusations and putting forward so-called self-evident truths, it would be an excellent opportunity to set a few things straight.

Those who demand freedom of the press should first take a closer look at Germany’s peculiar, one-sided reporting on China. Many of my colleagues have pointed out the orientalism that took hold in German media when the pandemic broke out – an othering of the virus that prevented an effective early response to the outbreak by Western countries.

The coverage prompted the renowned sinologist Wolfgang Kubin to pen an uncharacteristically personal, passionate article commiserating the hostile hermeneutics of his once favourite German newspaper, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ), which for a while now has been devoted to dubious espionage stories about Chinese agents operating out of Confucius Institutes. Kubin pointed out the not unimportant detail that only a few of the FAZ’s foreign journalists are proficient in Chinese.

ZDF reporter Ulf Röller, whom I met during my quarantine in Qingdao, ruefully admitted the same thing to me: too few German reporters understand what is being said or written here, including him. Unfortunately, such self-awareness is rare among writers.

Newspapers and other publications are seen at a newsstand in Beijing on November 17. Those who criticise China for the lack of press freedom should also take a closer look at Germany’s one-sided reporting on China. Photo: Reuters
Newspapers and other publications are seen at a newsstand in Beijing on November 17. Those who criticise China for the lack of press freedom should also take a closer look at Germany’s one-sided reporting on China. Photo: Reuters
If Baerbock wishes to talk about a rivalry between “authoritarian forces” and “liberal democracies”, citing Zhang Zhan and Peng Shuai, two popular talking points in the West, China could likewise bring up the actions of German authorities in the Murat Kurnaz case, or their questionable role as an aide and abettor of the United States in the war against terror.
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