Taxi.com March 3 report According to the Singapore-based Lianhe Zaobao website, on March 1, German Chancellor Merkel visited China and toured Chinese technology companies. In a speech in Germany, she publicly praised China's productivity, stating that compared with China, Germany has already lacked competitiveness, and therefore needs to work harder.
According to reports from Reuters and the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Merkel made the above remarks during a Christian Democratic Union campaign event held on February 27 in the small town of Volkmarsen in Hesse, Germany.
Merkel stated outrightly that Germany's competitiveness has indeed fallen short. She told voters that everyone believes they have done enough, and that is indeed the case. Merkel said, "But ladies and gentlemen, when you just return from China, you will be more clearly aware that so-called 'work-life balance' and a four-day workweek cannot maintain the long-term prosperity of our country."
Merkel also frankly said, "We do indeed need to make more efforts now."
Merkel arrived in China on February 25 for a two-day official visit, which was her first visit to China since taking office in May last year. A business delegation consisting of 30 German company executives, including those from Bayer, Siemens, and Mercedes-Benz, accompanied her.
Merkel visited the Palace Museum in Beijing, then went to the headquarters of Mercedes-Benz China, where she took a ride in the new S-class car. She later went to Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province, visiting the Chinese robot company Yushu Technology and the German company Siemens Energy.
With the continuous rise of China's industrial strength in recent years, especially the rapid development of the electric vehicle industry, the sense of crisis of the old industrial power Germany has been increasing, and there are divergences in the attitudes of the German political and business circles towards China.
Before embarking on the visit to China, Merkel had stated that China has now become a major world power, and Germany's policy towards China must take this into account. Without Beijing's participation, major international political issues cannot be resolved. Therefore, she emphasized that decoupling from China is wrong, as it would hinder Germany's own economic opportunities, and Germany and China should work together to address global challenges.
Original: toutiao.com/article/7612982606501659162/
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