Business Spotlight 08.2019

(Nancy Kaufman) #1
GLOBAL BUSINESS 6/2019 Business Spotlight 17

Fotos: China News Service/Getty Images; Miro Vrlik Photography/Shutterstock.com


affect sb./sth. [E(fekt]
, jmdn./etw. betreffen
albeit [O:l(bi:It]
, wenn auch
all-embracing
[)O:l Im(breIsIN]
, (all)umfassend;
hier: weitreichend
alleged [E(ledZd]
, angeblich
ally [(ÄlaI]
, Bündnispartner(in)
Beijing [)beI(dZIN]
, Peking
headache [(hedeIk] ifml.
, hier: Problem
intellectual property
[IntE)lektSuEl (prQpEti]
, geistiges Eigentum
looming [(lu:mIN]
, sich abzeichnend
supply chain
[sE(plaI tSeIn]
, Lieferkette
USSR [)ju: es es (A:]
, UdSSR
vexed [vekst]
, schwierig, problematisch

the world order he clearly would have pre-
ferred would have been a group of two,
China and the USA, working together and
against the USSR. Those were the days of
the Cold War (1947–91), a period of geo-
political tension between the United
States and its allies and the Soviet Union
and its allies.
Applying Bismarck and Kissinger’s
theory to the interplay of two countries
today, three is a crowd, which is a head-
ache for Europe. Trump and Xi represent
something new for all those too young to
remember the Cold War. Ours is a world
that is now being divided into two eco-
nomic and political blocs. The growing ri-
valry between the rising superpower and
the recognized superpower will affect not
just China and the USA but the countries
that make up most of the global trade that
provides jobs to billions of people.

A looming conflict
In a Financial Times article titled “The
looming 100-year US– China conflict”,
economic columnist Martin Wolf warned
that the American– Chinese rivalry “is the
most important geopolitical develop-
ment of our era”. Wolf added: “Not least,
it will increasingly force everybody else to
take sides or fight hard for neutrality. But
it is not only important. It is dangerous. It
risks turning a manageable, albeit vexed,
relationship into all-embracing conflict,
for no good reason.”
The thing about Cold War II, unlike
Cold War I, is that the conflict with China
doesn’t have its origins in an ideological
debate, but an economic one. Washington
has long believed that it has been exploit-
ed by Beijing and points to several exam-
ples of alleged intellectual property theft.
President Trump is pushing back, say his
supporters, and this is affecting the sup-
ply chains on which almost all other coun-
tries depend for production.
So, how should Europe react?
If Hillary Clinton were president of the
US, the question would be easy to answer,
say those who dream of an America that’s
“more like us”. Europe shares more values
with the United States than with authori-
tarian China. But Donald Trump’s “Amer-
ica First” policies are asking big questions,

If Xi Jinping was
worried about
the trade war
with the USA,
he didn’t show it

Henry Kissinger: On China


“A number of commentators, including some
in China, have revisited the example of the
twentieth-century Anglo- German rivalry as an
augury of what may await the United States and
China in the twenty-first century,” writes Henry
Kissinger in On China, which was published in
2011.
Kissinger is frequently compared to the
19th-century Austrian statesman Klemens von
Metternich, the poster boy of pragmatic diplo-
macy. And pragmatism was at the centre of the
German-born US secretary of state’s secret
approach to China in the early 1970s. The Amer-
ican relationship with China became key to
Kissinger’s worldview, and he guided President
Richard Nixon’s breakthrough visit to the “Mid-
dle Empire”.
Fans of anecdotes will enjoy Kissinger’s details
of his conversations with top Chinese leaders,
from Mao Zedong to Jiang Zemin. “Mao domi-
nated any gathering, Premier Zhou Enlai suffused
it,” he writes. Kissinger is worried that the rise of
nationalism in China along with populist rheto-
ric in the US may lead to conflict, and he believes
that the West should defend human rights while
trying to understand China’s turbulent history.
Henry Kissinger is controversial, but few polit-
ical advisers today can match his understanding
of statecraft.

augury [(O:gjUri]
, An-, Vorzeichen
poster boy of pragmatic
diplomacy [)pEUstE bOI Ev
prÄg)mÄtIk dI(plEUmEsi] US
, Vorzeigerealpolitiker(in)
(poster boy
, Aushängeschild)
revisit sth. [)ri:(vIzIt]
, etw. erneut aufgreifen

secretary of state
[)sekrEtEri Ev (steIt] US
, Außenminister(in)
statecraft
[(steItkrA:ft]
, Staatskunst, Kunst der
Staatsführung
suffuse sth. [sE(fju:z]
, etw. durchfluten

Veteran
statesman:
Henry
Kissinger
Free download pdf