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China doesn’t want to ‘buy Europe’

As German Chancellor Angela Merkel wrapped up her visit to China on Friday, the Asian giant’s leaders promised they had no intention to "buy Europe," amid concerns over growing Chinese investment in debt-stricken eurozone economies.

Published: 3 February 2012 15:08 CET
China doesn't want to 'buy Europe'
Photo: DPA

China is “willing to cooperate with Europe to fight the current crisis. Some people say this means China wants to buy Europe,” China’s Premier Wen Jiabao told a German-China business forum in the southern city of Guangzhou. “This concern doesn’t fit reality. China doesn’t have this intention and doesn’t have this ability.”

Merkel, in China for a three-day visit to boost her host’s confidence in Europe, also attended the forum along with executives from the energy, chemicals, engineering, banking and electronics sectors.

There are growing concerns in Europe that a recent wave of investment by Chinese companies and government-backed funds will give Beijing too much influence over struggling European economies.

In the latest deal, China State Grid has agreed to pay €387 million for a 25 percent stake in the national electricity grid of debt-stricken Portugal, Treasury Secretary Maria Albuquerque said Thursday.

European leaders have called on China, which has the world’s largest foreign exchange reserves, to invest in a bailout fund to rescue debt-stricken countries.

China has so far made no firm commitment to provide financial assistance, although Wen said Thursday it was considering getting more involved in bailout funds through the International Monetary Fund.

Analysts say bargain-hunting is behind the recent acquisitions by Chinese companies seeking to expand overseas. The country’s sovereign wealth fund has also sought to diversify away from US bonds.

Merkel, who earlier Friday held talks with President Hu Jintao and the country’s top legislator Wu Bangguo in Beijing, had said that she would raise human rights issues during her visit.

Rights lawyer Mo Shaoping, whose clients include jailed Nobel Peace Prize winner Liu Xiaobo, told AFP Friday that police had prevented him from meeting with Merkel at a reception at the German Embassy on Thursday.

Mo said police told him he was not allowed to attend the meeting due to concerns over social stability ahead of a key Communist Party meeting slated for late this year that will usher in a 10-yearly leadership transition.

The German embassy in Beijing did not immediately comment on the absence of Mo, who also defended the jailed rights lawyer Gao Zhisheng.

Merkel’s visit to Guangdong province will include a meeting with Gan Junqiu, the state-backed Catholic bishop of Guangzhou – the provincial capital – a German diplomatic source said, before returning to Germany on Saturday.

AFP/mdm

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POLITICS

Sleep, seaside, potato soup: What will Merkel do next?

 After 16 years in charge of Europe's biggest economy, the first thing Angela Merkel wants to do when she retires from politics is take "a little nap". But what about after that?

Published: 5 December 2021 17:31 CET
Outgoing German Chancellor Angela Merkel briefly closes her eyes and smiles at a 2018 press conference in Berlin.
Outgoing German Chancellor Angela Merkel briefly closes her eyes at a 2018 press conference in Berlin. Aside from plans to take "a little nap" after retiring this week, she hasn't given much away about what she might do next. Tobias SCHWARZ / AFP

The veteran chancellor has been tight-lipped about what she will do after handing over the reins to her successor Olaf Scholz on December 8th.

During her four terms in office, 67-year-old Merkel was often described as the most powerful woman in the world — but she hinted recently that she will not miss being in charge.

“I will understand very quickly that all this is now someone else’s responsibility. And I think I’m going to like that situation a lot,” she said during a trip to Washington this summer.

Famous for her stamina and her ability to remain fresh after all-night meetings, Merkel once said she can store sleep like a camel stores water.

But when asked about her retirement in Washington, she replied: “Maybe I’ll try to read something, then my eyes will start to close because I’m tired, so I’ll take a little nap, and then we’ll see where I show up.”

READ ALSO: ‘Eternal’ chancellor: Germany’s Merkel to hand over power
READ ALSO: The Merkel-Raute: How a hand gesture became a brand

‘See what happens’
First elected as an MP in 1990, just after German reunification, Merkel recently suggested she had never had time to stop and reflect on what else she might like to do.

“I have never had a normal working day and… I have naturally stopped asking myself what interests me most outside politics,” she told an audience during a joint interview with Nigerian writer Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie.

“As I have reached the age of 67, I don’t have an infinite amount of time left. This means that I want to think carefully about what I want to do in the next phase of my life,” she said.

“Do I want to write, do I want to speak, do I want to go hiking, do I want to stay at home, do I want to see the world? I’ve decided to just do nothing to begin with and see what happens.”

Merkel’s predecessors have not stayed quiet for long. Helmut Schmidt, who left the chancellery in 1982, became co-editor of the weekly newspaper Die Zeit and a popular commentator on political life.

Helmut Kohl set up his own consultancy firm and Gerhard Schroeder became a lobbyist, taking a controversial position as chairman of the board of the Russian oil giant Rosneft.

German writer David Safier has imagined a more eccentric future for Merkel, penning a crime novel called Miss Merkel: Mord in der Uckermark  that sees her tempted out of retirement to investigate a mysterious murder.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel forms her trademark hand gesture, the so-called “Merkel-Raute” (known in English as the Merkel rhombus, Merkel diamond or Triangle of Power). (Photo by Tobias SCHWARZ / AFP)
 

Planting vegetables
Merkel may wish to spend more time with her husband Joachim Sauer in Hohenwalde, near Templin in the former East Germany where she grew up, and where she has a holiday home that she retreats to when she’s weary.

Among the leisure activities she may undertake there is vegetable, and especially, potato planting, something that she once told Bunte magazine in an interview in 2013 that she enjoyed doing.

She is also known to be a fan of the volcanic island of D’Ischia, especially the remote seaside village of Sant’Angelo.

Merkel was captured on a smartphone video this week browsing the footwear in a Berlin sportswear store, leading to speculation that she may be planning something active.

Or the former scientist could embark on a speaking tour of the countless universities from Seoul to Tel Aviv that have awarded her honorary doctorates.

Merkel is set to receive a monthly pension of around 15,000 euros ($16,900) in her retirement, according to a calculation by the German Taxpayers’ Association.

But she has never been one for lavish spending, living in a fourth-floor apartment in Berlin and often doing her own grocery shopping.

In 2014, she even took Chinese Premier Li Keqiang to her favourite supermarket in Berlin after a bilateral meeting.

So perhaps she will simply spend some quiet nights in sipping her beloved white wine and whipping up the dish she once declared as her favourite, a “really good potato soup”.

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