Newsletter 2010/07/14 - Go East!
BERLIN/MOSCOW/BEIJING (Own report) - The German chancellor will be using her trip to Russia and China, which begins today, to enhance
business relations beyond the realms of the EU and North America. This thrust is taking into account China's rapid rise and the subsequent
shift of the focus of the global economy from countries of the Atlantic Basin to those of the Pacific Basin. Already now, with the
USA, China and Japan, the world's three largest economies border on the Pacific Ocean. Having been saved from the effects of the world
economic crisis through its exports to China, Berlin now sees itself forced to take measures to rapidly expand its German-Russian
cooperation, because Russia is also being drawn into China's economic maelstrom. Business circles are already warning that, in its influence
in Moscow. the West could lose out to Beijing. The newly established Berthold Beitz Center of the German Council on Foreign Relations
(DGAP) will promote German business expansion in Russia. The agenda of Chancellor Merkel's current trip also includes concrete measures
toward this objective.
more
http://www.german-foreign-policy.com/en/fulltext/56359
