IF HELMUT KOHL, the deceased chancellor whom Germany commemorated in a ceremony on July 1st, could have looked up from his coffin to assess his country’s global standing, it would have made him proud. European and Chinese leaders were passing through Berlin for preparatory talks ahead of the annual G20 summit of large economies, which this year takes place in Hamburg from July 7th. A week earlier Angela Merkel lambasted the isolationism and protectionism of Donald Trump’s America in a speech to the Bundestag. Once Mr Kohl’s protégée, the chancellor of his reunified Germany is sometimes dubbed the “leader of the free world” in the Anglo-Saxon media.
Yet such epithets get things wrong. To understand why, look at Germany’s relations with Africa, Poland and America.
The flummery is not all misplaced. Mrs Merkel is the most respected (see chart) and longest-serving of the main world leaders. Germany’s new economic pre-eminence has given it the leading role in...Continue reading
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