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Merkel and Clinton Go To China: One Makes Deals, The Other Gets Snubbed
Wolf Richter www.testosteronepit.com
Bring home the bacon, or the speck, as it were, was the guiding principle for German Chancellor Angela Merkel when she frolicked in China last week. But her pleas to get the Chinese to buy the crappy bonds of debt-sinner countries in the Eurozone fell on deaf ears. This week, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was hobnobbing with the Chinese elite. It turned into a clash fest, and instead of bringing home the bacon, she argued with the Chinese over everything and the South China Sea.
Merkel was accompanied by seven ministers and a delegation of executives from EADS, subsidiaries Airbus and Eurocopter, Volkswagen (which sells nearly a third of its cars in China), Siemens, Thyssen-Krupp, SAP.... Three planes stuffed with Germany’s political and corporate elite. It wasn’t about human rights or Syria or the South China Sea, but about trade.
Days before her visit, it seeped out that Airbus was hoping for a mega contract of 100 planes. The official occasion was Airbus’s joint venture in Tianjin where they celebrated with Premier Wen Jiabao the assembly of the 100th plane—of the 114 planes Airbus sold in China in 2011, 36 had been assembled there. During the ten years Wen has been Premier, German exports to China have quintupled, and Chinese exports to Germany have quadrupled.
Hopes of mega contracts can turn into disappointments. In early 2011, before the Chinese delegation came to Berlin, Airbus was hoping for an order of 150 planes. Then an advance agreement called for 100 planes. But in June that year, when the Chinese arrived in Berlin, they only ordered 88 planes. Punishment: the EU had included aviation in the EU Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) to deal with “climate change,” a policy China, along with the US and other countries, considered a harebrained idea.
This time, Merkel “secured” an order for only 50 planes. Tough times, even in China. Contracts were signed in the presence of Merkel and Wen. According to “informed circles,” numerous other deals were signed as well.
Smiles and friendly gestures abounded. Merkel and Wen strolled through the Imperial Palace together. There was talk on the German side of a “special relationship,” and on the Chinese side of “friendship.” Wen hinted that China would continue to “invest in the European Union”—but rather than buying bonds of Eurozone debt-sinner countries, which Merkel had been begging him to do, China has gone on a corporate shopping spree in Germany ... where it’s least needed. As an aside, the discussions also touched upon Syria and “questions of human rights.”
Germany’s interest is of mercantile nature. China’s focus is on strategy, part of which is to realign the world away from the hegemony of the US. It sees Germany as the leader of the Eurozone in a multi-polar world. And China needs friends. Its relationship with the US is thorny, with Japan on knife’s edge, and with countries around the South China See, which China claims as its own, it’s outright confrontational. Even in Africa, where China is investing heavily in resources, such as oil, tensions are growing [read.... The New Cold War, by Marin Katusa].
No such problems exist with Germany. But Germans have valuable technologies that China is appropriating bit by bit. It’s all about trade, and its murky give and take. A language both countries speak well. Not that there aren’t a host of tricky issues. But Merkel is flexible; she’d try to intervene, she said, with the EU Commission to scale down a trade war in solar panels which the Chinese are accused of dumping on European soil.
By contrast, Clinton’s visit to China, after a barrage of hostile articles in the Chinese press, turned into a fiasco. She argued with the Chinese over a laundry list of intractable issues. No compromise appeared possible; China simply refused to go along with US positions and initiatives. There was Syria: China supports the regime of President Bashar al-Assad, has vetoed three UN Security Council resolutions to stop the violence, and isn’t about to change its mind. There were other flashpoints, such as Iran, North Korea, and the territorial disputes in the South China Sea.
And instead of selling Boeings, software, and nuclear power plants, Clinton argued with hardened Chinese positions. They didn’t even try to put lipstick on their differences. It was so pointless that Vice President Xi Jinping, possibly the next leader of China, cancelled his meeting with her.
The visits by Merkel and Clinton are symptomatic of two different approaches. American concerns are valid, and should be high on the priority list. But so should be the economy, and it would benefit from more exports to China—just as millions of people are asking, “what can the next administration do to help me get a job?” So, Mrs. Clinton, where is the bacon?
Trade wars aren’t just with China: Argentina’s government goes through great lengths to use self-destructive policies to keep the country glued together a while longer. Read.... Argentina: When Life Gives You Lemons, Cry To The WTO, by stilettos-on-the-ground economist Bianca Fernet.
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...and meanwhile, back in the US, sheeple think of Hillary as "soooooo good" amd "what a smart person".
Clinton's a fucking joke as SecState....
she couldn't out-bullshit the kenyan in '08
now she works for him
the joke is on... ?
who are the "sheeple"? everyone who can think strainght? people who voted for mcCain & palin, perhaps?
the last 1/2-dozen entire cabinets have been a "joke"
why pick on her? colinPowell did well? condie? did ya like atty general gonzo better than the new guy?
the joke is on... ? sheeple? you are governed by the same interests and people as 'they' are ya know! but everyone MUST have favorites and those that are "jokes"...?
again :> you favorites in the last 2 administrations now please? so the sheeple will understand how fuking brilliant you are?
did you get the joke yet...?
You're right. All of them have been a joke. Why again shouldn't we heap some shit on Hitlery?
Condiment Rice and Colon Powell are gone, not much point in having fun at their expense, but Hitlery is going to be around to be the butt of our jokes for a while longer.
I'm sure that if McStain (I had a hard time choosing between McStain and McSatan)/Airhead were in, we'd be fuckin' with them just as much, 'cause they're just as big a joke as O'bomb-a/Retard Helmet Biden/Hitlery.
Lighten up, dude.
There should be an entry in the US Consitution banning members of the same family from serving in high-office in the US for a period of not less than 25 years.
Much of the ultra poor leadership would drain out of the system. Not all, but a lot of it.
Make that 100 years.
Absolutely... dynasty politics should have no place in a democracy.
constitutional safeguards like due process and freedom of speech? not on obama's (or bush's) watch. it is so plain and bright as the sun but people focus on the tightness of michelle obama's arms or the lack of communism in mitt.
it is going to get a whole lot worse before it gets better. the greatest generation spoiled their children, who spoiled their children .... life ain't painless.
Yes but wait till Jeb Bush has his turn from 2016 to 2024.
"The Diesel Dyke Bitch" got snubbed in China! I Like It!!!! My how the mighty have fallen. All this Left Wing Liberal Shit plus All Out Right Wing War Mongering has killed this country. Oh yeah, springle-in a little High Frequency Trading stuffed with POMO and you got the makings of the next Banana Republic! FUCK YEAH! See you all at the free lunch line coming to a city near you!
the more one learns of the clinton(s') administration, the more one sees the prototype for the obama administration, hold the constant rogering of all available females.
it is just so sad. i liked ike.
Correct. The last principled president. +1
yeah- but did Hillary get her some sweet Chi-Com poontang?
Vice President Xi Jinping, possibly the next leader of China, cancelled his meeting with her.
And analysts say clinton will not be the sos and will instead concentrate on prez 2016.
c'mon...she can't even buy that.
I heard that two or three months ago.
In the wacky world of US politics, if Hillary wants to be president in 2016 she should actively sabotage Obama's re-election campaign. Obamacare when it fully takes effect in 2014 is going to strangle the U.S. economy and push us into a severe recession (if we don't get there in 2013). If Romney is president during that time, he gets the blame and Hillary rides in as the savior.
This is a very good article... raises all the right issues and has the realpolitick of the situation read correctly.
riiiight!
obviously we want the business to go to germany so they will bail out the EZ instead of us
again
go germany!
once the chinese get down with the germans for a few years they will say :> slewie! bilary! we're sorry! we'll FREE TIBET now, too!
other than that germany can fuk with them
& sell a bucha beemers for some fresh chinese paper?
brilliant! and then send the 'money' to greece, too!
communism! it's what's for lunch!
Holy crap, taking me back with that sub-head line ...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jA4DR4vEgrs
Regards,
Cooter