“Cost of `Decoupling from China’ Enormous for World, Says Expert,” Xinhua headlines its “exclusive interview” from Germany with Helga Zepp-LaRouche, who declared: “It is in Germany’s interest to continue and expand cooperation with China,” and asserted that the idea of “decoupling from China” is a geopolitical plot, and amounts to economic suicide for Germany, with the European Union (EU) and the world economy suffering the consequences. Xinhua identifies Zepp-LaRouche as founder and chairwoman of the German think tank the Schiller Institute. It further emphasizes her insistence that Germany’s attempts to reduce its economic dependency on China under the pressure of the United States will plunge the country into turmoil and put its economy at great peril.
As the geopolitical situation worsens and the energy crisis intensifies, the possibility and cost of “reducing dependence on China” and “decoupling from China” are under intensive discussion in Germany and the EU, Zepp-LaRouche said, stressing that China and Germany have great potential for cooperation and “decoupling” is against Germany’s interests.
Xinhua writes that a study by the Munich-based ifo Institute for Economic Research found that for the EU and Germany to decouple from China would cost Germany almost six times as much as the Brexit did. The ifo study revealed that the automotive industry would be the biggest loser in the event of a trade war with China. Zepp-LaRouche remarked that the ifo’s estimation understated the impact of economic decoupling, which would lead to geopolitical confrontation and weigh heavily on the world economy. “So I think this is a pass into a disaster and should not be taken,” she said.