Why are German companies accelerating efforts to partner with Chinese rivals?

CGTN Europe interviewed Ulrich Brückner, Professor for European Studies at Stanford University Berlin

Transcript

00:00German firms operating in China are accelerating their cooperation with

00:04Chinese rivals. It's a significant shift in strategy. Ulrich Bruckner is Professor

00:10for European Studies at Stanford University in Berlin. Great to have you

00:13on Global Business again. So this report, what's changed here? What can we

00:19read into this of deepening cooperation between German firms and Chinese firms in

00:25China? Well it is a very interesting development because it's practically

00:32Deng reverse. So when Deng Xiaoping in the 1980s started a campaign to copy from

00:39what Western technology could bring to China to catch up and to develop its own

00:46technological path. This is now what German companies try to do in China by

00:53forming joint ventures to try out things that because of everything Peter has

00:58just pointed out is way harder to get done in Germany because of all the risk

01:05averse and bureaucratic hurdles and therefore a small percentage of German

01:11small and medium-sized enterprises that are already present in China form a new

01:17strategy. So are you saying that China is then an obvious place for German industry

01:22to do business despite shifting geopolitical positions and market

01:27pressures? Well it depends on what we are talking about. It's not like every

01:34German company would immediately subscribe to this. We have five to ten percent of

01:40German SMEs that are present in China and those companies they change their

01:46strategy and proactively aim for joint ventures to learn from new technologies and

01:53basically experience the future. I've been traveling to China since the beginning of

01:58the century and whenever I come it feels like this is science fiction and this is

02:03the future and we are far behind in applying technology and trying out things.

02:08That's very different in China so a lot of German companies could greatly benefit from the

02:14experience of joining forces with partners. On the other hand we are living in

02:21times in which the securitization of everything is omnipresent and that's the

02:26explanation why I'm only talking about five to ten percent of German SMEs.

02:31And in terms of sectors where is this where there is this reciprocal business

02:37interest? It's not just cars is it? Well certainly not. When we read the five

02:44years plan of China it identifies what is considered to be systemic technologies

02:52that no one can live without. And in all these areas there is a great potential to

03:00join forces and to learn from each other on the assumption that we would still live in

03:05times in which everyone is perfectly interested in a functioning supply chain

03:10management and in globalization. And here comes the big question mark because we

03:16have a systemic conflict and we see tendencies of weaponizing asymmetric

03:24dependencies and if this keeps going then de-risking is the only possible strategy.

03:30Ulrich Bruckner, always a pleasure talking to you. Thank you so much. That's Ulrich Bruckner

03:34from Stanford University, Berlin.