How to Handle China?

Germany must resolutely oppose the enemies of democracy, acting defensively and exemplarily instead of offensively and in a missionary way. These are basic features of a robust liberalism that moves into system competition with a mix of cooperative, competitive, and controversial elements.

One of the trends of the 2020s will be intensified system competition with China. Huawei is only the beginning, 5G is only the cipher for Germany's search in the rediscovered world of geopolitical competition. The debate about who will equip the country with a modern digital infrastructure marks the beginning of a chain of disputes, the core of which is ultimately a competition over ideas of humanity: Will Germans be able to live freely and with self-determination in a world in which liberal democracy lives on, and thus the political values of the Enlightenment? Or will China's alternative system of digital behavior-conditioning and data control by an authoritarian state reach Germany and Europe, or even conquer them insidiously?