The US-based pro-Xi Jinping overseas Chinese news outlet, Duowei, on October 3, while
assessing the situation after the general elections in Germany described Merkel as "a rather stable
and mature leader, rather than an open leader who is determined to make progress". It called her
leadership style more than conservative and less enterprising. In the process, it said, "the Merkel
administration was conservative and missed the opportunity of a new round of industrial revolution
represented by digital information technology". This misstep has caused Germany and the EU as
a whole to lag behind China and the United States in the emerging digital technology industry.
Taking the Internet industry as an example, there is currently no leading Internet company in the
EU that is capable of supporting global competition. At the same time, the entire European Union's
Internet market is under the monopoly control of US Internet giants. It added that outside the field
of digital technology also, Germany under Merkel did not have any forward-looking policy in the
field of new energy. The most obvious of these was the decision to hurriedly abandon the nuclear
power plant after the Fukushima nuclear power plant accident in Japan. However, this expedient
measure caused Germany's to lag in the field of new energy, and brought a profound negative
impact on Germany's own energy security. This is a serious challenge for Germany, which has
long used thermal power generation as the mainstream, and nuclear power, which was originally
the first choice for new energy sources, was completely abandoned by Berlin after the Fukushima
accident. In this situation, the Merkel authorities have to turn to rely on natural gas that is scarce
in the European Union-according to the European Commission's 2019 data, 77% of the EU's
natural gas demand depends on imports-for the "green power generation transition." This in turn
provides the two major powers outside the EU, the United States and Russia, with the "natural
gas" brand that they dream of and can directly influence the EU's foreign decision-making.
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