Germans emerge as Europe’s biggest China hawks as economic pain begins to bite

Germans have emerged as some of Europe’s most hawkish voters on China, more likely to consider Beijing as a rival or an adversary than in any other major EU country, a new survey has shown.Published amid a bout of soul-searching in Berlin over whether to back a tougher approach towards China on trade, the findings suggest that the country’s citizens might not be opposed to such a shift.A combined 49 per cent of German people polled considered China to be primarily a rival or an adversary, way ahead of the second of the 13 countries polled, which was 43 per cent in France – a long-time supporter of a more interventionist EU trade policy.