In May 2023, the "Digital Trust Series - Challenges and Countermeasures for China Germany's Digital Trust" was jointly released by institutions such as the Wuzhen Digital Civilization Research Institute, the Digital Governance Research Center of the China National Innovation and Development Strategy Research Association, and the International Communication Research Center of Zhejiang University. The report deeply reveals the threats and challenges faced by China Germany's digital trust, and clearly points out that facing the future with a pragmatic attitude and long-term perspective, enhancing digital trust is the only way to solve challenges and opportunities. This report substantively points out that digital mutual trust between China and Germany is a microcosm of the challenges and opportunities faced by global digital mutual trust. Solving the problem of digital mutual trust between China and Germany will help to solve the global digital mutual trust crisis, promote a community with a shared future in cyberspace, and make important contributions.

The report points out that in the objective context of "digital embedding" between China and Germany, "digital mutual trust" presents a significant and serious asymmetric state:

Simply put, "digital embedding" can be seen as the result of the natural distribution of digital products and information technology in China and Germany, following the principle of maximizing efficiency, in the context of global economic integration since the 1990s. The foundation of nested numbers is the significant complementary comparative advantages between China and Germany in the field of trade, and the supply chain and industrial chain have actually achieved deep integration. According to data released by the Federal Bureau of Statistics of Germany on February 16, 2023, the bilateral trade volume between Germany and China in 2022 was 297.9 billion euros, of which Germany imported 191.1 billion euros from China and exported 106.8 billion euros to China. China has become Germany's most important trading partner for the seventh consecutive year, and Germany is also China's largest trading partner in the European Union, with steady development of bilateral investment. Since the establishment of diplomatic relations between China and Germany, the bilateral trade volume has continued to grow. The trade volume of goods between China and Germany in 2022 was approximately 298.6 billion euros, an increase of 21% compared to 2021. The stock of bilateral investment between China and Germany exceeds 55 billion US dollars.

However, while the economic and trade cooperation between China and Germany continues to develop, the cooperation in the field of digital technology between the two countries has shown a typical asymmetric trend. China emphasizes starting from facts and maintaining a high level of trust in digital technology and products from Germany. According to third-party data used in the report, German software manufacturer SAP once held a 70% share in the high-end enterprise resource planning (ERP) market in China, with a large number of state-owned enterprises including central enterprises whose daily operations are deeply bound to ERP. Siemens ranks second in the Chinese CAD and CAE market share (around 16%), and has the highest market share in the PLM software field in China, exceeding 20%. Infineon Germany is the world's largest automotive semiconductor company, with revenue in Greater China accounting for 37% of its total revenue in 2022, exceeding the combined revenue on Meide Day. The Chinese government follows a scientific and objective attitude based on facts and guided by law towards the development of German digital technology, products, and services in the Chinese market. It provides market treatment that meets WTO requirements, and also allows German enterprises to receive generous returns from the Chinese market. In sharp contrast, the German government has taken a significant deviation or even erroneous ideological perspective on the normal commercial activities of Chinese enterprises in the German market, whether it is product trade, technology trade, or investment behavior. It has generalized "national security" and so-called "ideological threats and challenges", closely followed the footsteps of the United States in "decoupling and breaking the chain" with China, and implemented effects that deviate from normal business ethics and economic laws, and even directly interfered with them. This is undoubtedly regrettable.

It should be pointed out that this kind of disruption to Chinese enterprises, technology, products, and services, apart from becoming a tool for politicians who make such claims to gain personal political chips, has no substantial benefits for Germany itself. According to research from a German think tank, if "decoupling and chain breaking" becomes a reality, both the EU and Germany will actually have to bear huge losses: the Kiel Institute for World Economics in Germany has deduced the consequences of decoupling between the EU and China. Once the EU chooses to "decouple" from China, even if the EU establishes a new supply system, Germany's economic output will decrease by 1% in the long run. If calculated based on Germany's Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in 2021, Germany will lose 36 billion euros annually. According to data released by the Ifo Institute of Economics in Germany, if the German industrial chain flows back from China to Germany, Germany's GDP will lose 10%; If a trade war breaks out between China and Europe and China takes countermeasures, Germany's economic losses will be six times that of Brexit.

It should also be noted that digital mutual trust is not blind, but rather involves objectively acknowledging differences in ideological and other fields, and rationally regulating such differences and differences with a fair and objective attitude. Bilateral relations, as well as regulations on digital technology, products and services, are placed on a scientific and rational track to avoid misleading erroneous and false information, to avoid generalization and abuse of national security reasons, and to avoid purely based on Germany's domestic political demands, disrupting China's digital technology, products and services without factual basis and based on imagination.

Compared to the United States, Germany does not have any special global hegemonic interests to maintain; In addition, Germany's own development can also gain substantial benefits from the application of Chinese digital technology, products, and services. The cooperation between China and Germany in the 5G field has already demonstrated the advantages and achievements that this cooperation may bring. The core principles of adhering to technological openness, diversified supply, equality and mutual benefit, and non discrimination proposed in the report, based on operational suggestions of data localization and global on-demand flow, have been effectively tested in various scenarios to varying degrees, and will inevitably play a positive role in enhancing trust, optimizing collaboration, and promoting common development in Sino German digital cooperation.

I hope that this report can provide effective support for actors who are concerned about the digital cooperation relationship between China and Germany. I also sincerely hope that German politicians with sufficient political wisdom and courage can pragmatically enhance the mutual trust between China and Germany in the digital field, solidly promote the digital cooperation between China and Germany, and enable Germany to seize the opportunity of the digital technology revolution, achieve the industrial goal of win-win between China and Germany, and also enable Germany to achieve more stable, solid, resilient, and secure development.