As the relationship between Berlin And Beijing are worsening, the German city of Duisburg has now restricted freight train traffic from China, as reported by Nikkei Asia in its respective publication and republished by a British newspaper Financial Times. A typical case is Zuad Durakovich, the owner of a truck driving school on the outskirts of the German city of Duisburg, who appeared in Chinese newspapers in 2019 saying that his initiative “Silk Road” Beijing has sparked a boom in the local supply chain management industry. Today, his business benefits from a shortage of skilled truck drivers, but not from China’s global infrastructure strategy.

Silk Road was not designed for us,” Durakovich told Nikkei Asia. “First there was a coronavirus pandemic, then there was a war in Ukraine, so the explosion is no longer due to the supply systems of the Silk Road.” Duisburg, a city of half a million inhabitants, is located in the industrial heart of Germany, at the confluence of the rivers Rhine and Ruhr. The downturn in the country’s steel and coal industries in the 1990s and early 2000s hit its economy. However, the city found salvation in the person of Chinese President Xi Jinping, who visited it in 2014 to officially single out its port as the main node of the “Road” to Europe.

And while this has fueled the expectation of a new boom, recent events suggest that the prospects are fading. To some extent, they are connected with the war in Ukraine, as well as Germany’s awkward relations with China. Chancellor Olaf Soltz was the first European leader to visit Beijing since Xi was re-elected for a third term at the Communist Party convention in October. But Germany’s approach has recently been shaken by China’s friendly relations with Russia, the issue of Taiwan and human rights, and the growing trade deficit from the former. Germany is currently reviewing its relationship with Beijing, and Berlin’s new guidelines are expected to be made public in the coming weeks.

Judging by the drafts, one gets the impression that parliamentarians are seeking to form a clearly tougher political attitude towards China, but at the same time want to reduce economic dependence on the country. The hardliners propose limiting investment in China, as well as stricter controls on companies that are too dependent on it.