In order to get out of the European dilemma and seek broader development space, multinational car companies must seek closer and more integrated economic ties with the largest market entities.
Author丨Huang Yaopeng
Editor丨Tiancao
Produced by Tiancao
Produced by Autobot All Media
German Chancellor ScholtzAttentions of China, the matter has been circulating for almost a month, but it still looks unresolved.
On October 21, after the EU summit, Scholz announced again that he would lead a government delegation to visit China in November, and a large number of business leaders will accompany him. European media also claimed that French President Macron will visit China together.
This will be an unprecedented visit and will very well reflect what Germany has always claimed to be "a Europe". However, after the differences between France and Germany over energy and defense policies were superficial, this possibility was almost zero.
Information on visiting China "temperature difference"
Many people can't count it. This is how many times the Scholz government has publicly "previewed visit to China".
What is embarrassing is that as of press time, the attitude of the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs was still on October 11, when the spokesman of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Mao Ning said that "there is no news available for release." The temperature difference of
is too obvious. The guest repeatedly said to the outside world that he had made a decision, and he was going to come, but the host said, "Not".
Usually, national leaders meet, provided that consensus is reached on major issues preset by both sides. "Automan" boldly guessed that it might be a requirement from China, and Germany has not yet let go. Scholz’s idea is to talk about it later and want to engage in “leader diplomacy”. This may be due to the differences in diplomatic thinking between China and the West.
China and Germany are inseparable from economy, this is reality. The other side of reality is that there are a group of "scripture chanters" in Germany.
is right, it is mainly the Green Party in this government. When they are in the same tone as the current Brussels , politicizing economic and trade issues, the China-EU investment agreement is getting colder under this atmosphere. Ignoring the basis of real interests and turning to value diplomacy and value governance, so that the foundation for sitting down to talk is very fragile.
, which has always won over the Green Party to form a cabinet, is now facing the Green Party’s sabotage, which should actually be a headache.
German car companies have increased their investment in China
In the past year, German car companies have continuously expanded their investment in China, including but not limited to:
Volkswagen Xinjiang investment, increasing their holdings with JAC joint venture shares, and investing 16.8 billion yuan to establish a joint venture with Horizon;
Audi FAW New Energy built a new pure electric production line in Changchun;
BMW html invested 15 billion yuan in June to build the third factory in Shenyang (Rida factory). This is BMW's largest investment in China and the upcoming migration of MINI electric production line to China;
Mercedes-Benz 12 billion yuan to build Beiben Shunyi New Energy Factory, which is also put into production and offline recently.
All these investment activities in China have been very ambiguous so far. They even refuse to provide national guarantees in some projects, but it does not hinder the strategic upgrade of German automakers' investment in China.
Recently, Scholz has indeed released a lot of friendly information in order to visit China.
Last year, COSCO Shipping, which faces regulatory approval, can no longer delay the acquisition of 35% of the shares of Germany's Port Hamburg, which is facing regulatory approval. The end of October is the deadline for the acquisition, and the six government departments (led by the Ministry of Economic Affairs) that participated in the investigation expressed their veto attitude. Scholz therefore refused to discuss the matter at the cabinet meeting and directly instructed the relevant departments to draft a "compromise plan."
Shultz has been on the stage for less than a year. He repeatedly showed a tough attitude towards China in the past few months, and now he has expressed a completely opposite attitude, as if he has lost his memory. To show your toughness only requires one-sided performance, while to be kind, you need the other party to cooperate. Obviously, the former is easy and the latter is difficult.
Shultz is like an actor who talks about a talk show, trying his best, but there is no response from the audience. This is not something embarrassing can be expressed, it has constituted a humiliation of career.
new energy power generation depends on China
If you look at the series of blows that Germany has encountered in the past few months, you can understand why we need to make such a difficult but necessary choice.
"Automan" has previously mentioned in the article "The wave of supplier closures is coming" that Germany is experiencing the rapid deindustrialization of in recent months. If the 800 small and medium-sized suppliers of the automobile industry are not shocking enough to close every month, just look at the experience of Tesla in Germany.
The "annoying" twists and turns when the Tesla Berlin factory was planned to be built, one pit at a time, is already tormenting enough, and there are still constant troubles after it is put into production. The biggest thing is that the Glenhead (where the Tesla factory is located) government stops voting to support Tesla's application for expansion.
Tesla has terminated the production of 4680 batteries in Germany indefinitely and transported the equipment back to the United States, giving up the 1.14 billion euro subsidy, and it is also willing to do so. In August, Musk said at the annual meeting in Texas, USA that there are still "many problems" that need to be solved in Glenhead.
Until today, Tesla's production in Berlin has not reached its planned production capacity. In the visible future, it may not be achieved, because there are problems with energy and raw material supply.
In September, after Germany lost a large number of heavy industries ( electrolytic aluminum , zinc, steelmaking, and heavy chemical industry), PPI increased by 45.8% year-on-year, while CPI rose from 7.9% to 10%.
Although the rise in CPI has triggered mass parades, the huge gap between PPI and CPI is silently endorsed by enterprises. Even with energy subsidies (which caused great dissatisfaction in France), how long can they bear it?
Recently, Germany has claimed more than once that natural gas storage is full, and natural gas prices have dropped. Both are true. The latter is because a bunch of large natural gas customers run away and die. If consumed, the price of natural gas will naturally drop; while the former is even more ridiculous. It is like someone has a large refrigerator at home and claims to the public that "the food in the refrigerator is full." Does this mean that there is no shortage of food?
In fact, in terms of the consumption that has fallen down, if this winter is still kind, it will last up to 16 weeks. However, the price is that Germany is no longer the second industrial and second exporter, and naturally it cannot protect the second major automobile exporter.
If Germany wants to restart industry, it must solve the energy problem.
Scholz has rejected the olive branch sent by Putin , and now extends the service time of the last three nuclear reactors , restarts thermal power plants, imports nuclear power from France, and imports natural gas from Spain and Turkey (the latter is acting as a second-trafficking dealer for gas). These measures are either slow down or dropping the bucket.
The green energy that the Green Party and most German people like (this is also the basis for the Green Party to come to power) is mainly wind power generation , photovoltaics and their energy storage equipment. There is no other choice, so you can only come from China.
Do you still remember the China-Europe Photovoltaic War we mentioned? Now China's global share of photovoltaic panels ( single crystal silicon ) has reached 95%, basically breaking down its competitors all over the world.
Germany is not like the United States, and can still pretend to be ignorant and "import" photovoltaic equipment from Vietnam, but energy storage still cannot surpass China. Because energy storage equipment not only needs to be supplied, it also needs to be coordinated and connected to the grid, this is not a technical problem that Vietnamese channel traders can handle.
Qatar The newly completed 800MW photovoltaic power station accounts for 10% of Qatar's power generation, and is known as the world's third largest single photovoltaic power generation project. China is the general contractor.
As long as Germany still takes the 2030 clean energy target released this year seriously, there is no choice.
China has already achieved the price of photovoltaic on-grid electricity to 0.2 yuan/kW (it was only 0.8 yuan/kWill there be subsidies 10 years ago). Just like the Kylin battery produced by , CATL 5, technology iteration has already tapped a gap. It is not only a matter of scale cost, but also cannot catch up with it.
Car companies urge the German government to ease the scale of
new energy (power generation, energy storage) solutions, which can only be found in China.
And the big demand for energy, namely the German industry, especially the big car companies, are constantly putting pressure on the government. Not only is the decoupling plan to China initiated by Vice Premier and Minister of Economic and Climate Protection Habeck, also cannot be issued, but also requires Germany to strengthen trade ties with China. This is not a question of whether to fight a trade war or not, but a need to strengthen cooperation.
The EU has defined China as a partner and an opponent, while the UK has pushed the EU to regard China as a "comprehensive competitor", which is actually seeking to unify the pace of China with the United States.
has the final say and American financial capital. Germany's industrial capital has a vital right to speak in the political circle. This can explain why the German automobile industry has influence in the national policies and policies, and can even influence the direction of policies, while the American automobile industry has no political presence and is often like a young wife (see the suppression of Tesla by this US government).
German car companies require strengthening Sino-German cooperation, not only to maintain government-business relations in China and protect the actual needs of investment in China, but also to deepen the integration of value chains.
The energy dilemma that Germany is facing now is just a superficial phenomenon. Behind it is the geopolitical dilemma of Germany (safety depends on the United States, but economic interests are contrary to the interests of the United States).
In order to get out of the European dilemma and seek broader development space, multinational car companies must seek closer and more integrated economic ties with the largest market entities. Both China's business and the domestic vehicle production capacity of Germany benefit from this.
Therefore, car companies (through the chamber of commerce, trade unions and state governments, the latter two are also shareholders of car companies) urge the government to consolidate a win-win situation, which ensures strategic security. Under this expectation, Scholz had no other choice but to seek strategic easing with China.
Shultz has made a ease-up sign, regardless of whether it is a passive choice (some people are worried about changing their tone when they return to China), as long as they do not move towards a thorough confrontation, it is proved that Germany can be the partner.
China now only needs to avoid the worst results (full confrontation). At worst, we can only talk to German companies. Compared with China, Germany now needs China-Germany relations to become more enthusiastic. This is the inherent reason for the “temperature difference” we see. [Copyright Statement] This article is an original manuscript of "Automan" and may not be reproduced without authorization.
