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China is not the real risk for Europe, Qin Gang warns Berlin hosts
- Without naming the US, Chinese foreign minister says ‘new cold war’ will damage European interests as well as China’s
- Qin reiterates Beijing’s concerns that EU’s ‘de-risking strategy’ will become a ‘de-sinicisation’ of the continent
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Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang has warned that the real “risk” Europe faces comes from “a certain country” that is waging a “new cold war”, imposing unilateral sanctions and exporting its own financial problems to others.
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Qin did not mention the United States by name, but accused the country in question of fomenting ideological confrontation and engaging in camp confrontation, when asked about the EU’s “de-risking” strategy in Berlin on Tuesday.
The unnamed nation had abused the monopoly status of its currency and transferred its domestic inflationary and fiscal crisis, with serious spillover effects, he said at a joint press conference with German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock.
“These are the real risks that need to be taken seriously. If the ‘new cold war’ is fought, it does not only damage China’s interest, Europe’s interest will also be sacrificed … That’s the real risk to be concerned about,” said Qin, following his second meeting with Baerbock in the past month.
Qin backed his remarks with a report released earlier this month by the Austrian Institute of Economic Research and the Foundation for Family Businesses, estimating a 2 per cent drop in Germany’s GDP if it decoupled from China.
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The de-risking strategy was introduced in March by EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, who stressed that it was “neither viable – nor in Europe’s interest – to decouple from China”. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has also repeatedly rejected decoupling.
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