The US-Chinese dispute over Nancy Pelosi's visit to Taiwan has descended to the symbolic level.
China announced on Friday that it would impose sanctions on Pelosi and her family.
Neither the "speaker" of the House of Representatives nor her family probably had any intention of seeing the sights of China, so they can ignore this gesture, which is aimed primarily at Chinese nationalists at home.
What is more important is that the government in Beijing wants to suspend some talks with Washington for the time being.
The resumption of these contacts is not only in the area of climate protection, but also in China's interest.
Therefore, sooner or later we will talk to each other again.
And that's good and right.
In the meantime, several other countries also feel affected by the conflict.
Japan and the USA are moving even closer together than before.
This is not a surprise, but it cannot be credited to China's success story either.
Germany is also affected
By October at the latest, Germany, which likes to stay out of everything, could find itself in Beijing's diplomatic field of fire.
The Bundestag Human Rights Committee is planning a trip to several Asian countries.
In Taiwan, parliamentarians can (and should) see that and how well democracy works in Chinese culture, which Beijing always denies.
But the crisis is also a good reason to think about Germany's and Europe's future relations with China.
Europe should not close any of the existing channels of dialogue, but persistently represent its own interests.
It must also be clear, however, that China cannot (any longer) be relied on in all situations, whatever Beijing may say.
Excessive dependencies should be reconsidered and eliminated.
There is still time to correct Russia's mistake in relation to China.