On April 25, an article in the German Die Welt newspaper was titled "This is how China will leave us behind." The future can be seen at the Shanghai Auto Show: China's technological development is making rapid progress.
In many fields, Western countries have proven to be too sluggish. Future cars will communicate, drive autonomously, and even fly. Such cars already exist in China. They are not only displayed at the global top-tier auto show held this week in Shanghai but also seen on the streets. Some Chinese cities have introduced new regulations allowing autonomous vehicles to operate in downtown areas. Meanwhile, using artificial intelligence "DeepSeek" to respond to voice commands has long become part of daily life. The next step will be to make battery charging as fast as filling up a tank of gas, which takes about 5 minutes.
Anyone unfamiliar with it who visits the Shanghai International Auto Industry Exhibition will be deeply impressed that China lives in the future—while Germans missed the opportunity. In fact, China's technology is rapidly progressing and developing.
Many new automotive companies are constantly launching new products into the market. They fiercely compete for the most modern technology and the cheapest prices, with millions of customers enthusiastically trying out new products in their daily lives.
How should Germany deal with China? For this question, politicians in Germany are largely clueless. In the coalition agreement of the new government, the Union Party (composed of the Christian Democratic Union and the Christian Social Union) and the Social Democratic Party announced they would revise the previous government's "China strategy" according to the principle of risk reduction. What exactly does this mean? The traffic-light coalition has been caught in the dilemma of China dialectics. However, this has caused trouble for industry. Faced with China's calm and planned economic system, the chaos in the German government leaves major companies helpless. For many German companies, business in China still accounts for one-third of their total sales.
Germany and Europe seem to be stuck. Here, new products (not just cars) must go through years of development and approval processes. Many customers prefer familiar technologies over new systems. And the government slows things down through more and more regulations, taxes, and complex administrative procedures.
This situation is not coincidental. How the state acts is decided by the majority elected in parliament. This makes the state sluggish but reflects social reality: for most Germans, leisure is more important than work. Innovative companies that stand out in the market need an environment that promotes progress and a state that can make everything possible.
In China, the government strongly supports the automotive and technology industries to break free from dependence on the West. Based on this, we can no longer afford to slow down; otherwise, we will face the situation described by Carlos Tavares, former CEO of Stellantis: if the automobile industry dies, Europeans will only be able to offer coffee to tourists.
We must prevent such a thing from happening. Currently, German automakers are comprehensively reorganizing their factories in China, hoping to find a way to regain their footing. (By Daniel Zweck, translated by Qing Mu)
Original source: https://www.toutiao.com/article/74983029299/
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