2050 superpower

Chapter 30 Germany and Japan's Injuries (2)
When we talk about the rise of a country, we usually pay more attention to the improvement of the country's economic, military, and technological strengths, thinking that as long as it is at the forefront of the world in terms of economy, military, and technology, everything will be fine and strong.actually not.The richest country is not necessarily a powerful country.The richest countries in the world are ranked by per capita GDP. The top three are Luxembourg, Norway, and Qatar. The United States, the only superpower in the world, only ranks ninth.Are Luxembourg, Norway, and Qatar powerful countries?Obviously not.Is military and technological leadership a strong country?maybe.The Soviet Union was both a military power and a technological power, but it finally disintegrated.

The process of forming a powerful country is a people's movement, not an elite movement.Only when the quality of the people is strong can it become a powerful country, and nouveau riche cannot become a powerful country.Germany and Japan once declined after World War II. Even if they fell, the world would not regard them as weak countries.

Let's take a look at how Germany and Japan have become stronger after 70 years of hard work since the end of World War II.

In August 1990, East and West Germany were reunited and restored as one country.Because the economic level of East Germany was lower than that of West Germany, the economic level of the whole of Germany fell, and East Germany became the rescued area.The people of East Germany are not ashamed of this. After adjustments, the economy is on the right track. Its economic growth rate exceeds that of West Germany, thereby driving the growth of the entire German economy.Germany uses laws to protect competition and oppose monopoly, forming a healthy atmosphere for economic development, allowing the industry to develop in a balanced manner, and using an independent financial system to ensure the deployment of the social economy.Germany's comprehensive labor wage system and social security system have made society stable and citizens can live and work in peace and contentment.The French "Le Monde" said: "In the camp of the bourgeoisie, today's professional politicians try their best to show off that they are members of trade unions." Among the members of the German Parliament, trade union members account for a large proportion. Has a lot of influence.In Germany, the enterprise workers' committee represents the interests of all employees of the enterprise, and talks with the employer once a month to exchange information and opinions; the enterprise workers' committee holds a general meeting of all employees of the enterprise every year to report on the work of the year.According to the provisions of the German Enterprise Law, employees can ask the relevant person in charge of the enterprise to explain the calculation method and composition of the salary, evaluate the work of the employee, and the two sides discuss the conditions and possibilities of promotion.During the limited period of the contract, the employees of the enterprise cannot be dismissed unless they commit a serious crime, or engage in political or terrorist activities during working hours.Receiving training is not only a right in Germany, but also an obligation. Workers in any factory or enterprise have received various vocational educations. Even farmers must receive agricultural vocational education, otherwise they cannot be workers or farmers.

It's the same in Japan. After "World War II", Japan's resource conditions and geographical environment did not seem to have the conditions for "rising", but he rose.Some people call this a "Japanese miracle", but it is not.Japan's resource conditions and geographical environment were the same before and after World War II. It could become a powerful country before World War II, and it can also become a powerful country after World War II.Generally speaking, a country's resource conditions and geographical environment are a "constant" or "coefficient", while the country's rise depends on the "variable" of people.Japan's rise is due to its very strong national cohesion.This kind of national cohesion makes even the powerful United States feel a headache.The United States and Japan are both major automobile production countries. Japan exports a large number of automobiles to the United States every year, while the United States' exports to Japan are repeatedly blocked.The United States was very annoyed by this, so it conducted an investigation into whether there was protectionism in Japan, and the results of the investigation disappointed the United States.The Japanese government does not have any policies or measures to restrict the import of American cars, but the Japanese people consciously boycott American cars to protect their own companies.Compared with Germany, after World War II, Japan’s military and industry started much later than Germany’s, with a poorer foundation. Today, Japan’s GDP is twice that of Germany’s. From this, it can be imagined that the Japanese nation’s organizational mobilization ability and Cohesion is better than Germany.Japan's GNP increased 1950 times from 1990 to 152, with an average annual growth rate of nearly four times. Without the support of a fanatical national cohesion, it is impossible to imagine.The Germans are serious, and the Japanese are even more serious than the Germans.When we see that the streets in Japan are spotless, the flow of people is neat and orderly, and the bus is not bad every second; when we see that the Japanese never show panic even when they encounter earthquakes and tsunamis; when we see every The Japanese are like precise machines, faithfully performing their duties, operating in an orderly manner, without any errors. We should believe that the rise of Japan is not a miracle, but an inevitability.

Professor Fang Ning, deputy director of the Institute of Political Science, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, once encountered a traffic jam experience in Japan: On the highway from the Izu Peninsula to Tokyo, tens of thousands of vehicles lined up on the right side of the road to form a 100-block traffic jam. There are many kilometers of long queues, and the left side of the road is an empty lane, but no car is driving on this car-free road, and there is no traffic policeman to maintain order on the more than 100 kilometers of traffic jams.The one-hundred-mile-long traffic flow moved forward slowly like this.Regarding this, Fang Ning said: "They themselves managed to defuse the 100-kilometer-long traffic queue! Such a persevering, orderly, and united nation is truly admirable and terrifying!"

When we saw the rapid rise of Germany and Japan, we always counted their economic accounts with their fingers and carefully checked their technological development level, but few people paid attention to their national quality.Without high national quality, even if you have a world-dominant economic aggregate, it is futile to want to be a world power.

§§§ Section [-] Germany after Confession

In the previous section, we mentioned that the rise of a country must first be guaranteed by high-quality citizens.The "rise" of a country with high-quality citizens can only be called revival.The two world wars launched by Germany gave Germany a bad reputation in the world. In today's economic globalization, reputation is as important as economic strength, and it always bears a bad reputation, which is extremely harmful to Germany's revival.If Germany wants to revive, it must rebuild its image.

On January 1970, 1, West German Prime Minister Willy Brandt finished his visit to the Czech Republic and Poland, laid a wreath in front of the Warsaw Memorial to the Jewish Victims, and then made an amazing move as the Prime Minister of a country. He knelt down up.On the same day, Brandt published his famous Atonement to the world.These events spread around the world and were praised by the people. On December 25, 1971, Brandt received the Nobel Peace Prize.Since then, Germany has recovered its reputation and returned to the embrace of the world.

After the end of the Cold War, East and West Germany were united into one country, freed from political shackles, and went to the world with a complete body.After the reunification of Germany, political reforms were carried out to eliminate past fascist ideology, and the social order was stable. Not only did Germany achieve unity in physical space, but it also achieved true unity in politics, culture, and economy.German Chancellor Schmidt said:

"Reunification offers Germany a golden opportunity to build a democratic, humane, self-confident and united society on German soil through comprehensive peaceful struggle, making our country a member of the world family The world is waiting to see how a unified Germany will take new steps.

The end of the Cold War and the reunification of Germany and Germany have significantly improved the status of Germany's geopolitical reality and brought about major changes in the political structure of Europe.Europe, the frontier of the conflict between East and West during the Cold War, has now become a bridge connecting East and West economically, politically and culturally.After the reunification of Germany, it immediately began to work on the construction of European integration.The reason why Germany is keen on European integration is because European integration is of great significance to Germany.First of all, the economic development of a country cannot rely solely on the domestic market, but must join the world economy.Through European integration, Germany can take a place in the European market by virtue of its strong economic and technological strength, thereby promoting its economic prosperity and development.Second, Germany is one of the locomotives driving European economic development. European integration can improve Germany's international status and influence, making Germany one of the leaders in the European Union.Finally, by actively promoting the deepening and development of EU integration, Germany can strengthen the relationship between Germany and Eastern and Western European countries, which has very important strategic significance.

Germany needs the EU, and the EU needs Germany even more.Whether it is calculated in terms of GDP or per capita GDP, Germany is the largest market in the EU, which is very important for promoting the economic development of Europe.With a population of 8300 million, Germany is the most populous country in the European Union and plays an important role in the democratic system of the European Union. Germany has a GDP of more than 2 trillion euros and contributes the most to the European Union's budget.

Germany is located in the center of Europe, adjacent to nine countries, and is the gateway to Eastern Europe. As the meeting point of EU countries, it occupies a favorable geographical position.

Germany's policy of promoting European integration has won the support of the domestic public. In 2005, the EU constitutional treaty was ratified by a clear majority in the Bundestag and the Bundesrat, which is enough to show what the German people want.Germany is the biggest beneficiary of the European integration process.According to 2010 data, in Germany's foreign trade, it created a foreign trade surplus of 1340 billion euros, of which 86% came from within the EU.In this regard, some people have raised the question "Does Germany belong to Europe, or Europe belongs to Germany?"This question is raised not only because Germany occupies a large number of European markets, but also because all EU issues are closely related to Germany.

Germany's strong position in Europe has put a lot of pressure on France. At the end of 2009, affected by the Greek debt crisis, the European economy experienced a recession. When the economy recovered, Germany proposed austerity policies and asked France to follow suit.To Germany's proposal, France made the opposite opinion, asking Germany to stop its austerity policy to ensure the continuation of economic recovery.Faced with France's opinion, German Chancellor Angela Merkel immediately announced a severe austerity program aimed at saving 4 billion euros within 810 years.Differences of opinion created a slight crack in the already reconciled German-French relations, which has since begun to widen.In order to prevent the debt crisis from affecting the overall European economy again, the EU is preparing to formulate the Stability and Growth Pact.For this convention, although both Germany and France advocated punishment for member states that exceeded the deficit standard, the punishment proposed by Germany was too severe.Germany has proposed temporarily expelling heavily indebted countries from the euro zone and proposing a final measure of "orderly national bankruptcy".In this regard, France believes that this is too severe, and at the same time worried that if this punishment mechanism is strictly implemented, it may eventually reap the consequences of itself and punish itself. Therefore, France rejected this proposal.Starting from this, Germany and France began to blame each other.Germany said France did not "respect the basic rules of a good budget" and that there was a lack of trust between the two countries, while France accused Germany of assertiveness.France's concerns are not unfounded.The European sovereign debt crisis has pushed Germany into the driver's seat of the European Union, and the balance of power has begun to tilt towards Germany. "

Although Germany and France blamed each other, the two sides did not part ways in the general direction.This general direction is that Germany and France have not changed their willingness to maintain the EU and the euro. They both hope that the EU's structural reforms to member states will achieve results, and that the EU and the euro will continue to maintain their vitality.However, the quarrel between Germany and France worries Europeans.Former French President Destin and former German Chancellor Schmidt jointly published an article, repeatedly emphasizing that the establishment of a close relationship between France and Germany is crucial to the construction of Europe; at the same time, they warned France and Germany that once a "marriage change" occurs between the two countries, the EU will Can't escape the fate of failure.

Germany has gained enormously from its confession to the world.Germany not only got the economic status he wanted, but also got the political status he wanted.In the past, Germany was called "economic giant, political dwarf".Politically liberated since Germany's confession, this "political dwarf" became a giant.Former opponents on the battlefield such as France, Poland, and the Czech Republic have given up their previous suspicions, no longer associate the present Germany with the past Nazis, and have joined with Germany in promoting the process of European integration.In international exchanges, Germany has also been widely welcomed.

After Germany's reunification in 1990, its diplomatic environment changed dramatically.Because of the repentance made to the world, in world politics, Germany strives to shield military politics, and will no longer join any international military organization except NATO, and insists that its own army can never leave the house without leaving the house.

For example, in the Gulf War in 1990, Germany resolutely refused to send the Bundeswehr to participate in the war; when the Yugoslav Civil War broke out in 1992, it should have been normal for the German army to participate in UN peacekeeping operations, but domestic public opinion was constantly arguing about this, and once threatened The coalition of the then coalition government and the Liberal Democrats united.But in the rivers and lakes, I can't help myself. In 1999, under pressure from the United States, Germany had to participate in the Kosovo War; later in the Afghanistan War, Germany was also forced to participate.Since then, when Schroeder ran for president in 2002, he made clear the "two nevers": first, never to participate in the war against Iraq, and second, never to vote in the UN Security Council to legalize the war.Later, in order to suppress the war, Germany formed an anti-war alliance with France and Russia in the UN Security Council in 2003.

It seems that Germany really regretted having launched "World War II".The Germans believe that their foreign policy should be a demilitarized and peaceful foreign policy.Based on this diplomatic concept, most Germans believe that their military only undertakes the responsibility of homeland defense and participates in necessary actions to defend the allies.However, both the United Nations and the United States require Germany to assume more responsibilities worldwide, including military responsibilities and obligations.This put Germany in a dilemma.First of all, Germany has established a demilitarized foreign policy. No matter what the reason is, sending military troops abroad is contrary to the principles it adheres to.Secondly, the United States and the United Nations are not a family. If the opinions of the United States and the United Nations are not unified, then Germany will be in a dilemma.In this regard, most Germans agree that Germany can take on more international responsibilities, but such responsibilities should be limited to non-military areas.

Debate has raged in Germany over whether it is unconstitutional for German troops to send troops abroad as pressure mounts on Germany from the United Nations to take part in peacekeeping operations.The agreed opinion is that Germany can carry out military operations outside the NATO defense zone as long as it is for peaceful purposes.The objection is:

All military operations must be directly authorized by the United Nations in order for German troops to participate in peacekeeping operations.

However, the UN Security Council is not a god independent of the world, and there are many situations where the emperor is used to command the princes. Its resolutions are often influenced by some big countries, or even the will of a certain big country.For example, resolutions 770, 776, and 836 of the United Nations were made under the oppression of the United States.These resolutions interfere in the internal affairs of a country on humanitarian grounds. In 1994, the United Nations Security Council gave a very broad interpretation of Article No. 30 of the Charter of the United Nations, "Threats to, and breaches of, the peace."For this reason, the "New York Times" said: In order to justify the use of force by the United Nations, Washington recklessly expanded the scope of "threats to international peace and security" according to Chapter 7 of the Charter.

(End of this chapter)