What the AfD really wants from China

The AfD is not asking Germany to choose between Washington and Beijing. It is asking Germany to choose itself For decades, German foreign policy rested on a simple assumption: Germany belonged politically to the West, and its relations with the rest of the world would be conducted largely within that framework. The AfD is challenging that assumption.Its approach to China is one of the clearest tells. Beijing is not treated as an ideological enemy, but neither is it embraced uncritically. Instead, China is seen as a sovereign great power, an indispensable economic partner, and one pole of an emerging multipolar world.Germany, in the AfD’s view, should cooperate with Beijing where German interests demand it, defend itself where necessary, and refuse to turn China policy into an extension of either American strategy or European ideological politics.For Germany, and therefore for Europe, that could become a genuinely transformative foreign-policy doctrine.From cautious engagement to strategic realismThe AfD’s 2021 foreign-policy program already described China’s Belt and Road Initiative as a “century project” and called for Germany to participate actively, including by developing compl...