Almost two years of TV break, now the ex-chancellor Sebastian Kurz has completed his return to the ORF. And this on a hot topic: China’s influence in Europe.
Europe should be “closed”, but an “international player”, that should be one, former Chancellor and businessman Sebastian Kurz opened the ORF show “Im Zentrum” by moderator Claudia Reiterer late Sunday evening. Explosive topic of the program: “Europe by a thread – how big is China’s power?”. During the corona pandemic, independence was also learned, for example when it comes to delivering medicine, says Kurz, who was still responsible for the government in Austria at the time of the corona crisis.
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“Work together, but be careful”
Working together, but carefully and appealing to China’s responsibility, this was also the tenor of the other guests on the “Im Zentrum” program – in addition to Kurz, there were sinologist Mikko Huotari (Director of the Mercator Institute for China Studies, Berlin), political scientist Velina Tchakarova (Austrian Institute for European and Security Policy) and journalist and author Joëlle Stolz as guests at the ORF studio. Kurz was also an ardent advocate of Austrian neutrality, but given Austria’s importance, it was necessary to remain realistic.
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Austria is very blessed with its position in Europe, according to Kurz. Non-NATO countries are not the biggest in Europe, so the question of joining NATO must be more important for Austria than for NATO. He then went on to criticize a green politician: A “dangerous trend” is, in any case, when “European politicians with their index finger raised” are out there all over the world, “basically I think de-escalation is the right thing to do,” said Kurz. He was addressing German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock and her visit to China.
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“Don’t need teachers from the West”
Baerbock recently openly criticized the human rights situation in China during his trip – with strong backlash from China. The German foreign minister called for human rights to be respected in China and described a Chinese military buildup around Taiwan as a “horror scenario”. China was then outraged. China goes its own way when it comes to human rights and doesn’t let itself be interfered with, and “what China needs least is teachers from the West,” Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang said.
rfi navigation account Time 16.04.2023, 22:50 | Act: 04/16/2023, 22:55