German Chancellor Olaf Scholz told lawmakers on Thursday (June 22) he warned China against changing the status quo in the Taiwan Strait during the seventh round of German-Chinese government consultations.

Speaking at the Bundestag, Scholz said, “We firmly reject all unilateral attempts to change the status quo in the East and South China Seas by force or coercion. This is especially true for Taiwan.” Scholz also said he expressed concern to Chinese Premier Li Qiang about Beijing’s human rights violations and the state of the rule of law in China.

Qiang and several members of his cabinet were in Berlin for the bilateral talks on June 20. The meeting focused on “taking sustainable action together.”

Scholz’s remarks come as Germany has taken more concrete actions in countering Chinese belligerence and increasing its presence in the Indo-Pacific region.

In April, German Foreign minister Annalena Baerbock said a conflict in the Taiwan Strait “would be a worst-case scenario globally” and would affect Germany greatly.

“Fifty percent of global trade passes through the Taiwan Strait, 70 percent of semiconductors pass through the Taiwan Strait, so the free passage is in our economic interest as well,” Baerbock said. For this reason, the EU and Germany “cannot be indifferent” to escalating cross-strait tensions.

In December 2021, the German Navy dispatched the frigate Bayern to cross the South China Sea. This was the first German military ship to do so since 2002.

On June 4, Defense minister Boris Pistorius said Germany planned to send a frigate and navy supply ship to the Indo-Pacific in 2024. The ships are “dedicated to the protection of the rules-based international order that we all signed up to and which we all should benefit from be it in the Mediterranean, in the Bay of Bengal, or in the South China Sea,” he said.

https://www.taiwannews.com.tw/en/news/4926615

Category: Taiwan