Business Spotlight 08.2019

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