Speaking at an online event organized by the Brookings Institution (USA), Maas told the Americans, “Germany is on your side.” He said the two countries should work together on democratic reform abroad, national defense and China-Russia issues.
Maas noted that it is even more important that countries should work together under the current pandemic of the Chinese Communist virus (Wuhan pneumonia). He said close cooperation among democracies would prevent losing to “those who claim that authoritarian regimes can handle crises better.
“We have responded to the crackdown on civil society by Moscow and Beijing, and to the violations of international law by both countries,” he said. He said.
Maas said he hoped the U.S. and Germany could reach a common position on “targeted sanctions,” which he said had not been possible in the past four years.
The remarks by Germany’s top diplomatic official would open the door to joint U.S.-German sanctions against China and Russia for human rights abuses.
Previously, Germany, along with its EU partners, imposed sanctions on Russia. The reason was that Russia provided weapons to Ukrainian separatist forces and carried out attacks against Putin’s opponents.
During the Trump (Trump) presidency, the United States exerted enormous pressure on Berlin over matters such as Germany’s failure to meet its defense spending obligations under the NATO military alliance and Germany’s insistence on buying Russian gas. Despite the fact that Trump has left office, the U.S. government is still demanding that Germany increase its defense spending.
Maas said Tuesday that Germany will “continue on the path it has taken” and that it has increased its military budget by about 50 percent since 2014.
However, Maas did not mention the controversy over the Nord Stream 2 pipeline in the Baltic Sea, the construction of which Washington believes would make Germany overly dependent on Russia for energy.
In recent months, Germany has begun to try to make moves to respond to some of the U.S. concerns.
For example, Germany recently extended its military mission in Afghanistan and announced that it will send warships through the South China Sea. For the past several years, the United States has emphasized that freedom of navigation in the South China Sea is threatened by the Chinese Communist Party.
Last year, Germany enacted an IT security law that sets a high bar for manufacturers of telecommunications equipment for next-generation networks, although the legislation does not impose a blanket ban on CCP huawei‘s products and services as required by Washington.
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