Bulletins and News Discussion from April 15th to April 21st, 2024 - Between The Darkness And The Dawn, There Rises A Red Star

I'm flattered, but I don't want any evil imposter twins making posts with my exact name and profile picture, lmao. Impersonating a mod is bannable, even if you're doing it because you like the mod.

Anyway: here's an article I found on Germany's industrial woes vis-a-vis China:

SCMP: Germany’s China shock: as Scholz leaves Beijing, others raise alarm about waning economic honeymoon

[hexatlas tags: Germany, China]

The article starts by describing how Germany has benefited from a relationship with China even as America began suffering, and then moves on to recent years:

A growing number of economists believe the prolonged Sino-German honeymoon period is over. Tales like Webasto’s struggle with Chinese competition will become the rule rather than the exception in the relationship as the complementary nature that enriched both sides over the past quarter of a century wanes.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz visited China this week amid an intensifying debate about how Berlin should engage with Beijing in the future. On one side, some big companies are doubling down on their investments in China, typified by Volkswagen’s announcement last week it would spend US$2.68 billion expanding production and research facilities in Hefei in Anhui province in southeastern China.

From this side, any disruption to Sino-German trade is troublesome. Senior German automotive lobbyist Andreas Rade accused the European Union investigation into Chinese electric vehicle subsidies of having “no consensus” among member states, and being “not a good signal”.

But many businesses on the front lines disagree. As China has moved up the value chain and its manufacturers have become more sophisticated, suppliers and customers of German industry have become fierce competitors. The German automotive industry’s sluggish embrace of new electric vehicles, along with China’s stunning rise in this sector, presents a whole new raft of challenges.

Germany dodged a “China shock” when China joined the WTO a generation ago. Research estimates, however, that the trend claimed more than half a million American manufacturing jobs, leading to frustrations that helped usher in the political tumult of Donald Trump. Now, with the German economy ailing, some predict its China shock has arrived.

Chemicals giant BASF announced 2,600 job losses in Germany last year, even as it expanded its investments in China – a trend labour unions said was “not acceptable”. Engineering giant Bosch cut several thousand automotive jobs in Germany this year and last, while pumping several billion euros into research and development and production centres in China. The labour union IG Metall described it as “a fatal signal for Germany as an industrial hub”, according to the Rhodium report published in February. Similar trends were noted for automotive giants Mercedes-Benz, Volkswagen and ZF Friedrichshafen.

At the same time, German exports to China have been plunging. In 2023, they fell 4.2 per cent from the previous year. The trend worsened into 2024, Chinese customs statistics show, with a 16.6 per cent slump over the first quarter.

“I think it’s absolutely fair to say that China is moving into the kind of space that Germany used to occupy quite prominently in the world economy, especially if you look at export numbers,” he said, pointing to China’s “high and rising share of not only automobiles, but also machinery”.

Russian gas stops flowing into Germany thanks to the US blowing up Nordstream and this raises energy prices, while China increasingly occupies Germany's manufacturing niche. They haven't been slammed from both sides this hard since 1945.

Surely, however, Germany is ready to take on the challenge of China by increasing competitiveness via intelligent economic planning? I don't even really know why I bothered to jokingly ask; they obviously aren't:

Euractiv: Germans must work more to boost weak economy, BDA, Deutsche Bank say

The long-term growth potential of the German economy has declined from 2.5% in the 1970s to just 0.5% today, according to data from the German Council of Economic Experts. On top of that, the energy crisis of the last two years has compounded problems for country’s manufacturing-heavy economy, resulting in particularly adverse growth expectations for 2024.

According to fresh figures released by the IMF on Tuesday, Germany is performing the worst among all major global economies – with economic growth estimated at 0.2% projected this year.

This, the head of BDA Rainer Dulger said, was also due to a shift in mindset in the workforce. “Apparently, the concept of work-life balance has somehow been overdone. At least that’s my impression,” Dulger said at an event organised by the liberal FDP party.

While the number of people employed has increased from slightly below 40 million in the 1990s to 45.9 million in 2023 – praised by the current coalition government as ‘record employment’ – the overall amount of hours worked has remained the same, due to reduced working hours, Dulger said.

“I’ve always enjoyed working,” Dulger continued. “And I would love to see more young people in this country getting up in the morning and actually enjoying what they do. Work must be valued more by the state, but also by society” he said, calling for “more respect for work and for those who create it.”

Dulger’s views were echoed by Christian Sewing, CEO of Germany’s biggest lender Deutsche Bank, who said that foreign investors were ready to invest in Germany, but only if they saw high motivation among workers.

Criticising proposals by, among others, Germany’s biggest trade union IG Metall, for introducing a four-day work week in certain sectors, Sewing cited OECD data showing that an average worker in Germany at present works 25.8 hours per week – the lowest among all OECD countries.

The opinions voiced by the two business leaders on Tuesday align with the stance of FDP party leader Lindner, who has recently circulated the idea of exempting paid overtime from taxes to motivate employees to work extra hours. “If you want to be at the top in terms of living standards, if you want to be at the top in terms of social security and if you want to represent top ecological and moral standards, you must also be prepared to show top performance again,” Lindner said at the same event.

Were you "representing top moral standards" when you defended Israel from accusations of genocide while thousands of Palestinian children and babies lie dead?