An a July day five years ago, Angela Merkel appeared before the press in Berlin. Merkel, who was Chancellor at the time, reported on a groundbreaking investment decision. The Chinese high-tech group CATL will build a new factory for the production of battery cells for electric cars in Thuringia for 240 million euros, the Chancellor announced after a meeting with China’s then Prime Minister Li Keqiang as part of the German-Chinese government consultations.
The Chancellor spoke of “an important day for Thuringia”. They “worked intensively” with the partners from China to bring the new factory to Germany. What was meant by this was: This investor and his plans in Thuringia are a top priority in the Chancellery, even if most Germans had never heard of this company called Contemporary Amperex Technology.
Today, half a decade after Merkel’s press conference, the Chinese high-tech factory in Thuringia is complete. In the end, it became much larger: CATL invested 1.8 billion euros instead of just under a quarter billion in the small town of Arnstadt, south of Erfurt. The huge new factory block in an industrial area on the outskirts of Arntstadt can be seen from afar. Inside, Europe’s largest clean room has been created – or as Thuringia’s Prime Minister Bodo Ramelow put it in an interview with the FAS: “Pure high-tech”.
Drop in temperature in political relations
A few years ago, the head of government from the Left Party guided CATL founder Robin Zeng himself through the Hanover Fair. Ramelow visited the stands of Thuringian companies with the guest from China. He wanted to show him the high performance of local companies in order to guide the Chinese and his battery cell factory to Arnstadt.
But that was a long time ago. There has been a sudden drop in temperature in Germany’s political relations with China in recent years. On Thursday, the traffic light coalition governing the federal government presented its long-awaited China strategy. For the Green Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock, the Chinese are one thing above all: “systemic rivals”.
In its China strategy, the government warns of the dangers of growing economic dependence on China. A reduction in these risks is “urgently necessary,” says the 64-page paper, which China skeptic Baerbock was in charge of.
The general openness of the Merkel years towards the rising world power in Asia has given way to doubts. Many in Germany today view China and its growing economic power with suspicion. For Arnstadt and his CATL factory, this means: The production halls in Thuringia with their expensive high-tech machines are brand new – and yet this factory comes from a bygone era.
Battery cells for around 200,000 electric cars a year
It’s not some new factory that’s built here, and it’s not some company that’s invested here. The battery is the most important component of an electric car, as important as the engine in a combustion engine – and the factory in Arnstadt is not only in Germany, but in all of Western Europe the first large production facility for this key component to go into operation. Other battery factories, such as that of VW in Salzgitter, will take years to complete, and for others such as that of the Swedish startup Northvolt in Heide, there has not even been a definitive investment decision yet.
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