Germany’s chancellor, Friedrich Merz, said the government would strip out network components produced by Chinese companies everywhere that it is possible and will not allow technology from China in next-generation networks, amid an increasing focus on tech sovereignty and security.
“We have decided within the government that everywhere it’s possible we’ll replace components, for example in the 5G network, with components we have produced ourselves,” Merz told a business conference in Berlin on 13 November in comments reported by Bloomberg.
“And we won’t allow any components from China in the 6G network,” he added.
Next-gen networks
Merz said he planned to discuss digital sovereignty with French president Emmanuel Macron at a meeting this week.
“We’ll discuss with industry what we can do, not only to make ourselves independent from China, but also for example independent from the USA, independent from the big tech companies,” he said.
But he ruled out fully disengaging from China, which is Germany’s second-biggest trading partner.
Germany last year ordered telecommunications operators to remove equipment from China’s Huawei from their core networks over national security concerns, similar to measures adopted in the UK.
German Finance Minister Lars Klingbeil is travelling to China this week for talks on a range of trade issues, accompanied by representatives of German banks and insurance companies, at a time when the country’s industry has seen significant disruption from tit-for-tat trade restrictions imposed by the US and China.
‘De-risking’
China’s April restrictions on rare earth exports have led to increasing supply-chain bottlenecks for German manufacturers, while a battle over Netherlands-based, China-owned chipmaker Nexperia has led to shortages of vital commodity chips required by automakers.
Germany’s parliament last week appointed an expert commission to re-evaluate trade policy toward China, accelerating a policy of “de-risking” around issues including energy, raw material imports and Chinese investments in critical infrastructure.
