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Posted on 04/01/2005 3:36:36 AM PST by Flavius
Defying Parliament, chancellor asserts authority to determine foreign policy
BERLIN Chancellor Gerhard Schröder of Germany, faced with a surge of opposition in Parliament to his plan to lift the arms embargo on China, asserted in an interview published Thursday that he had the authority to lift the embargo whatever Parliament might say on the matter. .
(Excerpt) Read more at iht.com ...
... embargo against China, in direct opposition to Chancellor Gerhard Schröder.
... For the time being, China will not be receiving any weapons or military ... www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,1564,1380190,00.html - Similar pages Chancellor Schröder calls for an expanded military role for Germany
... spoken of the connections between economic interests and military power. ...
Last week Chancellor Schröder travelled to Pakistan, India and China ...
www.wsws.org/articles/2001/nov2001/germ-n08.shtml - 20k - Mar 30, 2005
Chinese, German armies conduct strategic consultations
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China is ready to make joint efforts with Germany to promote military cooperation between the two sides, said a senior Chinese army officer on July 26.
"China holds a positive approach towards the military relations", said Xiong Guangkai, deputy chief of the general staff of China's People's Liberation Army (PLA), on the occasion of the second round of strategic consultations between Chinese and German armies.
The initial round of strategic consultations was held in May 2002 in Germany.
During the consultation, the two sides exchanged views on international and regional issues of common interest and reached extensive consensus. Xiong also introduced China's recent achievements in its national defense and army modernization.
Hans-Heinrich Dieter, deputy inspector general of the German Armed Forces, said that Germany has been emphasizing the relations between the two countries and their armies. The two nations have seen successful cooperation in many fields and are expecting to promote such cooperation through in-depth discussions, Dieter said, adding that the two sides have witnessed frequent high-level exchanges.
Source: Xinhua
I think that this story can be categorized under "the capitalists will sell us the rope with which we will hang them".
Ping
What's with the guy on the right? He stop at the gardens on the way to the parade ground? :P
Another report continuing the story from yesterday.
Thanks again to elhombrelibre.
longjack
Sadly, it shows that the German government is not our ally and we should treat them as the enemy state that they are.
Wow- heavy statement, well put.
Red6
There was an extensive poll done in collaboration with the BBC (yes, it is that Beep based in London) on global perceptions of Communist China. Respondents were asked to consider whether they are favourable to China from an economic and military perspective. It reveals that even the Axis of Weasels countries have a heavily negative response to China when they are asked to consider from the military perspective. The figure for France runs at 79% and Germany at 91%. In contrast, the United States is at 76%.
Schroeder beware. You are going to open a pandora's box if you think you can get away from arms sales to the PRC.
He'll toss the Volk a few sound bites alluding to his economic intelligence in such matters, which is, in actuality, their subtle reminder that he considers the Volk much more ignorant than he himself is, and that shall be that.
Any retaliatory measures by the US because of arms sales to China will be passed off as attempts by the US to keep the Volk from getting ahead economically.
The only hope now is that the vote in North Rhine Westfalia can bring him to the brink of governing impotence, and the remaining parts of the country decide to climb on the bandwagon and clamor for new elections.
Schroeder, however, will make mincemeat out of any opponent, and may very well be elected again by a slight margin by playing to the fringe parties.
It almost worked in an attempt to regain power recently in Schleswig-Holstein. He managed to wring his way out of a CDU/FDP takeover there by sacrificing a governer, and has thus far avoided new elections in that State.
If he had lost S-H, and then loses NRW in May, he would lose his veto power due to sheer numbers of the oppostion voting. He needed S-H at all costs.
longjack
So, when is the KRISTALLNACHT
There's no term limits, Schroeder could be there a while. That's the problem. There's no one strong enough politically to take him on.
45 % of the Germans who don't want him around have to put up with a patchwork of minor parties running their economy into the ground.
I saw an article this morning talking about the unemployed eventually doing the harvesting work usually done by the foreigners. There's no reasonable job offer clause with the new welfare / unemployment laws. If you're given a offer to cut asparagus you take it or lose your benefits. Under those conditions, the Germans would want foreigners around to do those jobs.
longjack
I donno i guess i am just paranoid 24/7
That Stuermer guy is a very wise fellow who knows something about butting heads with the USofA,in matters like this is a very, very BAD move.
Schroeder is a fool, trying to save his sorry ass on the political level, since the 12.5% unemployment rate in Germany is haunting him and his political career.
There will be a heavy price to be paid have Germans jump ship and sell sophisticated arms to the Chicom's.
It's amazing that Schroeder is still in power. His most serious concern is his hair dye. He once threatened to sue some of the European press outside Germany for speculation about his hair dye. He's had 4 or 5 wives, and allegedly a mistress, and while that's more of a private matter of course, it's a reflection on the fact that he's a dabbler who isn't very earnest about what he says. Germany needs many reforms. Obviously, someone on the Left might have been better able to reform labor and such than someone on the Right. But Schroeder has managed to botch everything as far as I can tell. His one significant moment was also a big disgrace because he abused for his own gain the one nation that was for German reunification in the early 90's, a nation that stood by the Germans through the Cold War, a nation that fed the Germans after WW II and WW I, a nation that provided nearly all the help for the Berlin Airlift, a nation that financed the Marshall Plan, and a nation that, with its allies, defeated the tyrants who had plunged the Germans to the depths of hell and insanity. So a little over two years ago Schroeder campaigns on a policy of basically taking no sides in a struggle to liberate a country from a man as mad as Hitler; Schroeder pledged Germany to be neutral. That is his legacy; he provided moral comfort to the anti-American people in Europe and the US who were morally confused about the war in Iraq. He provided false comfort to Saddam and may have given him the hope that the US wouldn't attack. Now, he encourages dallying while Iran builds nuclear weapons. One might have hoped that Schroeder would have seen his way to lead the German people rather than to demagogue to the crackpot Leftists who never forgave the US for all it's done for Germany. Is it any wonder that Schroeder is sooo comfortable with Chirac? They're from different parties and political philosophies but they are cut from the same cloth.
I was still at university undergrad when Schroeder was elected in 1998. Although politics was not my area of study as an armchair historian I sensed there will be something big brewing in Germany when Schroeder won. People at that time painted him to be as in the same mold as Tony Blair and Bill Clinton i.e. former radical leftist who had accepted free market reforms, and who had grown realistic in use of arms and defending against threats. (Now we can pontifate whether Bill Clinton was one but presses in non-US West were not glowing on Clinton when it comes to his foreign policies - he was still too conservative for non-US Western Left).
Back to Schroeder. But people also forgot that the Social Democratic Party of Germany had a generation of anti-American radicals in their '68 generation that Blair never quite belonged there and their hold on the SPD is much stronger than Leftists' hold in the US Dems or even British labour Party. And Schroeder was born in 1944 - precisely the first generation of German that had no personal memory of WWII and only had impressions of post-war Allied (US and British) overseeing (or lording or supervising, if you will) of his country in his memory. Anyone who were in such upbringing naturally tend to be quite anti-whoever occupied/lorded his country.
Looking at his behaviours in Kosovo I was already muttering at myself that "Oh no, when the chips are truly down Blair would perhaps support the US, but Schroeder would cut and run and sit on the fence.". Subsequent post-9/11 period lent me brief hopes that this would have awakened Germans since they had far more common to Anglos than Latins (French, etc) but I was proved wrong. Amazing considering America has more German ancestry than British ancestry and German influence is as much as Anglo-Celtic legacy. But modern day Germans spurn on Americans.
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