In an interview, the head of the Federation of German Industries (BDI), Siegfried Russwurm, fundamentally spoke out against restricting trade relations with China after the publication of the "Xinjiang Police Files".
Every German company in China is responsible for drawing red lines in its supply chain, says Russwurm on Deutschlandfunk.
He warned of "dramatic consequences" for Germany as an export country if sanctions were imposed on Beijing.
Johannes Pennekamp
Responsible editor for economic reporting, responsible for "The Lounge".
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Earlier this week, an international consortium of media, represented in Germany by the news magazine Der Spiegel, published reports on systematic human rights violations against the Uyghur ethnic group by the Chinese leadership in the autonomous region of Xinjiang.
The FAZ also reported on the involvement of German corporations in Xinjiang and the reactions from the companies.
Now Rüdiger Bachmann, a German economist who teaches in America, described Russwurm's statements as "a grandiose mixture of smokescreens and poor economic understanding".
When Russwurm says that the local companies have to decide how to proceed, he ultimately says that nothing should happen, "a rhetorical classic".
In addition, nobody has demanded that business should only be done with liberal democracies.
Reconsider dependencies
"But you will have to rethink dependency structures," Bachmann told the FAZ. "German foreign and security policy must never again be open to blackmail by partial economic interests." Specifically, politicians must urgently ask themselves: "Should China attack Taiwan, we can then impose sanctions impose on China without the German economy suffering a meltdown?” If not, something is wrong.
Bachmann described the attitude of US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen as exemplary.
She stressed that trade relations must be built in concentric circles in such a way that certain value-sharing countries are the preferred trading partners.