https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-asia-tokyo-germany-europe-b0707f344b96efcc4fe751cdfa01c8e5
Although Germany was initially reluctant to pursue any sort of action against Russia in it’s war against Ukraine, they have sense branched into both militaristic support of Ukraine as well as an attempted partnership with both Japan, and potentially China, against Russia. For Germany, this may be an underlying attempt to prevent China and Japan from staging any sort of aggressive motion that they may have been tempted to pursue after Russia’s bolder actions. Germany has the upper hand in managing Japan, because of their similar approaches to international affairs (both have law oriented governments that focus more on due process), however China may be harder to secure. China’s (sort of) ally ship with Russia makes them a dangerous wild card in both the Ukraine conflict and in emboldening China to take action in securing Taiwan. As for the rest of the world, Germany encourages that we move away from relying entirely on one economic provider (such as China).
I think it’s very interesting to see the progression in Germany’s foreign affairs over the past few months. As they were so reluctant to provide Ukraine with any sort of support (militaristic or foundational), it comes as a small surprise that they would now not only be donating military supplies to the country but also that they would be so outward in their anti-Russian campaign in East Asian countries. I almost, however, feel that Germany is better suited to do the political outreach in East Asia than they would have been anywhere else. Although Germany can’t be said to have the same cultural surroundings as China, or even Japan, I do believe that they may hold the same hesitations on getting involved due to political standing. Germany’s government, as well as Japan’s, values the process of law that makes them wary of immediate action against Russia. In this way, Germany may be better suited to convince both Japan and China that action against Russia is needed effective immediately.
The article mentioned that Russia was attempting to force it’s way back onto the international scene, which is interesting to me. We’ve considered before how Russia is not entirely a powerhouse- the country is so large that a concentrated mass of power is almost impossible. Russia was able to gain that power during the cold war due to the instability of other countries post WW2, but even then it more so happened upon it’s power than forced it. I wonder then if Russia intends to force hegemony by the occupation of NATO countries, if it makes it far enough through Ukraine to achieve that. Even in that unlikely scenario, I feel that Russia would not be able to hold this hegemony, which is why I wonder what the end goal of Putin can really be without either total power or total failure.