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CDU leader Friedrich Merz in the Bundestag: "It's about a very fundamental question"
Photo: Clemens Bilan / EPA
After the approval of the Cosco partial entry at a container terminal in the port of Hamburg, the Greens and the Union criticized the decision of the federal government.
"The sale of a share of the Hamburg port terminal to the Chinese company Cosco is and remains a mistake," said Green Party leader Katharina Dröge.
The financial participation below 25 percent limits the damage.
But even that means economic dependency and impairs Germany's sovereignty in critical infrastructure.
Dröge said that those who glorify the investment as a purely economic project have learned nothing from the Russia policy of the past decades.
The traffic light coalition now needs an agreement on a "common and coherent policy on China".
Strategic dependencies must be reduced and not cemented.
Contractual veto rights excluded
On Wednesday morning, under pressure from Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD), the federal government decided on a so-called “partial ban” on the project.
It enables the Chinese state shipping company Cosco to acquire a maximum stake of 24.9 percent in the Tollerort terminal, which is operated by a subsidiary of the Hamburg port logistics company HHLA.
Cosco originally wanted to acquire 35 percent of the shares in the container terminal in Tollerort.
Several ministries had spoken out against it, and the Greens and FDP had openly contradicted Scholz.
The negotiated compromise now stipulates that Cosco cannot acquire any further shares.
The Chinese state-owned company is also prohibited, among other things, from being granted contractual veto rights in strategic business or personnel decisions, the Ministry of Economic Affairs announced.
A strategic participation in the terminal was thus prevented and the acquisition was reduced to a purely financial participation.
more on the subject
Chinese participation: The Pyrrhic victory of the Port of HamburgA guest article by Marcel Fratzscher
China's Entry into the Port of Hamburg: What Remains of the Green UprisingBy Jonas Schaible
SPIEGEL survey: Large majority against Cosco entry in Hamburg
The CDU chairman Friedrich Merz criticized Scholz directly.
"I don't understand the Chancellor how he can insist on it in such a situation," Merz said on Wednesday in ARD's "Morgenmagazin".
"Granting that permission is wrong."
Merz calls for a reassessment of the relationship with China
For him, the topic "is not primarily about financial aspects, but about political and strategic ones," added Merz.
Cosco's entry is "a very fundamental question from the point of view of the security interests of the Federal Republic".
The Federal Intelligence Service, six specialist ministries of the German government, the EU Commission and friendly governments such as the USA and most experts are against it.
Germany wants to continue trading with China, said Merz.
Nevertheless, a "reassessment of the relationship with China" is necessary overall.
He referred to the experience of the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine and the recent decisions of the Chinese Communist Party Congress.
The country is becoming “more and more repressive internally” and “more and more aggressive externally”.
The state-owned Cosco Group operates, among other things, the world's fourth largest container shipping company.
The ships have been calling at the Tollerort terminal for more than 40 years.
In return for the stake, Cosco wants to make the terminal a preferred transhipment point in Europe.
Shipping company shares in terminals are common in global container logistics.
Cosco itself already holds stakes in eight terminals in Europe alone - but critics suspect that China is thus specifically securing opportunities for influence.
"If China has an economic interest, that's only the first step," Julia Klöckner, spokeswoman for economic policy for the Union, told Deutschlandfunk.
»The second step is always the superstructure, the political and ideological interest.
And there we are system competitors.«
Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier had already warned on Tuesday against becoming too dependent on China.
»For the future it means we have to learn lessons.
And learning the lesson means we have to reduce one-sided dependencies wherever possible, this also applies to China in particular,” Steinmeier told the ARD “Tagesthemen”.
»It is very important that we talk much more intensively with China's neighbors, who certainly cannot replace our trade relations, economic relations with China.
But Southeast Asia is an area of 700 million people where I think we can rebalance the relationship with East Asia.”
slue/dpa