German media says two of the country's warships will transit the Taiwan Strait in the coming days. To learn more about this, TaiwanPlus spoke to Matthew Sussex, an associate professor at the Griffith Asia Institute, who says Berlin is looking to grow its role in the Indo-Pacific as Germany has become increasingly concerned about China's rhetoric on Taiwan.
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00:00We have learned that two German ships will transit through the Taiwan Strait.
00:05What's the significance of Germany's move?
00:07This is, I think, the first time since 2002 that German naval vessels have gone through
00:14the Taiwan Strait.
00:16So it's been more than 20 years.
00:19And I think, you know, the timing is relatively significant because it reflects German concerns
00:26that China's rhetoric on Taiwan may be about to ratchet up even more considerably than
00:35it previously has.
00:37There have been reports, for instance, in the Chinese media that there are attempts
00:42by Taiwan to go down the independence path again.
00:47And I think that Germany perceives this as, you know, potentially quite hostile rhetoric
00:52that could lead to misunderstandings.
00:54And so hence the idea, I think, to get involved militarily in freedom of navigation operations
01:01in the Taiwan Strait, to send a message to Beijing that Germany really hopes that strategic
01:06stability is the watchword of the day.
01:11China is Germany's biggest trading partner.
01:14Is Germany hinting at a shift in its relations with China with this transit?
01:18I think that there has been a bit of a realisation in Germany that China represents a fairly
01:25long-term strategic challenge to the interests not just of the United States, but also to
01:31major European economies.
01:34And this was reflected, of course, in the recent statement that came out of the NATO
01:38summit, which identified that China was a strategic challenge.
01:44And I think that whereas Germany does have to balance its economic relationship with
01:49Beijing, with its strategic priorities, nonetheless, I think this is a signal that it is alive
01:56to the potential for misadventure, conflict in the Indo-Pacific and that it is Berlin's
02:04preference that the status quo remains.
02:09In 2020, Germany published its Indo-Pacific strategy, indicating Berlin's plan to increase
02:15its presence in the Indo-Pacific.
02:17Is this transit part of those plans?
02:19Yeah, well, it's interesting that Germany, a couple of years ago, did go down the path
02:23of having an explicit strategy on the Indo-Pacific.
02:27A number of other countries haven't.
02:29But it's interesting to see that not just Germany, but France, the UK, are getting increasingly
02:37involved in the Indo-Pacific in a strategic sense.
02:40And whereas perhaps they don't have an enormous amount of military capability to sort of
02:47ultimately tip balances of power or anything else, it does signal that Germany is looking
02:53beyond the borders of the European Union and beyond the sort of transatlantic alliance
03:00space in terms of its security.