Europe was bounded by the Ural Mountains and the Ural River in the east, the Caspian Sea, the Caucasus Mountains, and the Black Sea in the southeast, and Asia in the west, the Atlantic Ocean, the Greenland Sea, and the Denmark Strait in the west, the Arctic Sea in the north, and Africa across the Mediterranean Sea in the south. All of these lands added up to about 10 million square kilometers. It was one-third of the territory of the Min dynasty.
The total population of Europe was over 300 million, less than half of China's. Based on China's current population growth rate, China's population would be three times that of Europe's by 1900.
Li Xin didn't want to laugh at Europe for being divided into a dozen countries and continuing to be divided. If Europe really became a unified empire, with Europe's current industrial strength and population, China would have to attach great importance to the European empire. Needless to say, a unified European empire was fully capable of driving China out of Africa.
From a practical point of view, a divided Europe was a great thing for China, not something to be laughed at.
Many things would become very interesting from a purely practical point of view. Li Xin sometimes thought that if His Majesty Vézé faced a completely unified European empire, China's war of liberation would be hopelessly difficult.
Therefore, when he left Germany by ship from Hamburg, Li Xin was very satisfied with the results of the survey. The German Prime Minister, ministers, the emperor, and the leaders of many parliamentary factions, Li Xin met with them and exchanged views on many issues. What made Li Xin most satisfied was that even though Li Xin spoke so bluntly, when Li Xin left Berlin, the newspaper still published an article, "Bismarck Prime Minister has decided to ban Russia's securities from being used as collateral in German banks."
Russia was in the midst of the 11th Russian-Turkish War, and Bismarck chose this time to ban Russia's securities from being used as collateral in Germany, which made Li Xin exclaim in amazement.
The exclusive cruise ship of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of China, numbered "Midstream OO95," not only contained Chinese diplomats, but also some German parliamentarians who took the Chinese ship to England. After getting used to the mugwort incense commonly used on Chinese ships, the German parliamentarians were full of praise for this 15,000-ton ship.
The ship was decked in teak, as were the rooms. There weren't many people on board, so the passengers were all allocated to first class. The whole room was carpeted. Plaster was added to the walls, and beautiful wallpaper was pasted. It was not inferior to the top hotels in Germany.
Every cabin had running water, its own toilet and bathroom. The toilet used a sit-down toilet. The bathtub was made of ceramic. The stainless steel faucet had been electroplated and shone brightly. The large mirror was even clearer and brighter. Even at night, the electric lights completely expelled the darkness in the cabin.
The temperature in the North Atlantic in April was still very low, and the China cruise ship showed its advantage. Unlike the high-end hotels in Germany that burned fireplaces, China's cruise ships used wall-mounted radiators, which were clean, warm, and quiet. This was another top-notch hotel in Germany.
There was also a freezer on the ship. With the clear division of refrigeration and freezing, the main dishes on the table were fresh beef and delicious tuna. The vegetables were even more fresh and tender. The greenhouse and cultivation room on the ship were combined into one. Seeing the soil, the people who moved on the sea felt like they were in a pocket-sized place.
"It would be great if Germany also had such a ship." At the dining table, the German parliamentarians sighed.
Li Xin took a sip of the snow white wine produced in North America in China. The taste of the oak barrel and the rich sourness of the snow grapes were really refreshing. It was a perfect match with the shrimp in milk. After enjoying a few mouthfuls of the food, Li Xin smiled and said, "If your country can import China's cruise ships, I promise you that you can use a cruise ship with a tonnage of more than 35,000 tons. Sailing in Europe is nothing at all, even crossing the Atlantic is not a problem. "
"I don't think there's any problem with this ship without a cruise ship of more than 30,000 tons." South Germany's Member of Parliament Reinhardt said, "If we can buy such a ship, it will be enough for Germany."
The other parliamentarians also agreed with Member of Parliament Reinhardt's point of view. The United Kingdom had ports that could dock tens of thousands of tons of ships. Although Germany was also building ports, it didn't have one. When sailing on the sea, the larger the tonnage, the better. However, it was not wise to consider ships without considering ports.
After listening to the parliamentarians, Li Xin smiled and said, "If you think this ship is good, and the price is right, you can buy this ship. Of course, if Germany allows joint ventures, China can also use this ship to buy shares and cooperate with the German shipping industry. "
"Really?" Member of Parliament Reinhardt said with a little tipsy after taking a big gulp of wine.
"Of course." Li Xin used to come from the Ministry of Commerce. If he hadn't been transferred to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, he would have been the Minister of Commerce by now. Therefore, when he received Vézé's order to promote China's products in Europe, Li Xin carried it out very seriously. In this regard, Li Xin very much agreed with Vézé's point of view. Good things should be taken out and sold all over the world, and they should be sold in big numbers.
Member of Parliament Reinhardt was not overjoyed because of this. Li Xin knew that the Member of Parliament had a considerable amount of shares in a German shipping company, so this kind of behavior seemed very strange.
"Germany's current policy is high tariff barriers. In the past, North Germany was organized through a customs union, and South Germany in the Rhine River basin originally supported France's free trade policy. Now that Germany is unified, according to the current policy, the import tariffs for such ships are frighteningly high. We can't afford to buy a ship. " Perhaps it was because he was drunk, or perhaps he had already tried in this area, Member of Parliament Reinhardt expressed his opinion in a very dissatisfied tone.
The German ruling class had a more correct opinion on Germany's current trade policy. Perhaps it was because good wine made people drunk, and when they were drunk, they would speak the truth. Member of Parliament Menendez put forward a different opinion. "Now that the price of agricultural products in Eastern Europe is so low, if we don't implement high tariffs, how can domestic agriculture stand it?"
This Member of Parliament Menendez's full name was Lawrence von Menendez, which was obviously a Juncker aristocrat. The Juncker aristocrats ran farms, and the thing they couldn't accept the most was the impact of cheap foreign agricultural products.
"Recently, they refused to allow Russia's securities to be collateralized in German banks because Russia has never followed commercial credit, and borrowing money is normal. Also, Russia's domestic laws are extremely poor in terms of liquidation. German investors wanted to use these securities to settle in Russia, and how many of them didn't get cheated by the Russians? "Member of Parliament Menendez continued to express his support for Bismarck's policy.
After listening for a while, Member of Parliament Reinhardt finally couldn't help but retort in front of China's foreign minister. "Targeted policies are good, but the entire policy is one-size-fits-all. Tariff barriers, export-oriented, the profits of all German products are taken away by those foreign companies. And when we want to import better products, we are blocked by high tariffs. It's the same with the establishment of joint stock companies. In order to crack down on so-called tax evaders and avoid tax avoidance through joint stock companies, the policy of the Empire's Ministry of Finance is to kill the wrong person. I don't think this policy is correct. "
"If we don't protect Germany's industry and don't use Germany's existing resources to develop Germany's industry, are we going to have an economic crisis like the British?" Member of Parliament Menendez was obviously a protectionist, and he was very opposed to the free trade advocated by Member of Parliament Reinhardt.
"There won't be an economic crisis with trade protection? If there won't be an economic crisis with trade protection, then where did the US economic crisis come from? " Congressman Reinhardt seemed to have a global perspective. He correctly used the United States, which also implemented trade protectionism and tariff barriers as a comparison.
Li Xin listened to the debate of the upper echelons of Germany with great interest. In the current world, there weren't many countries that supported free trade. The British were the standard bearers, and the French were also doing the same with trade protection. The other major industrial countries basically set up trade barriers in the name of protecting their own industry.
Compared to these countries, it was hard to say which one China's policy was. Currently, China's industrial development was very fast, and it was in the stage of conquering territories around the world. In recent years, China's state-owned enterprises had been withdrawing from many industries. For example, the needlework industry used to be a very profitable industry for state-owned enterprises, but under Vézé's order, state-owned enterprises completely abandoned the needlework industry. Now, the provinces had taken over the positions that these state-owned enterprises had given up and started to set up local industries.
Looking at it now, the situation in each province was very different, and the problem was very big. The domestic Ministry of Commerce and the Ministry of Finance were fiercely fighting a lawsuit. The Ministry of Commerce insisted on completely eliminating domestic trade barriers in accordance with the policy set by the Military Governor Of Vaize. The Ministry of Finance, on the other hand, believed that the domestic problem was too complicated, and it needed to be dealt with according to the situation in each region.
To put it bluntly, the Ministry of Commerce believed that there were too many repetitive construction projects in each province, and a batch, or even a large batch, needed to be eliminated through competition. The Ministry of Finance believed that state-owned assets could only be imported and not exported. If this rule was broken, there would be endless trouble. A large part of the Military Governor Of Vaize's energy in the past few years had been troubled by these issues.
In Li Xin's own view, the path that China should take was probably the free trade path. If it were not for the free trade path, Li Xin would not have accepted the heavy responsibility of starting the establishment of the RMB offshore center in Europe and starting the establishment of the RMB exchange system in various European countries. In terms of capital operations, to put it bluntly, it was still a problem of capital flow.
However, the German parliamentarians did not argue for too long. It was probably because they also felt that there was no value in such a meaningless debate in front of the Chinese foreign minister. Member of Parliament Reinhardt asked Li Xin, "Sir, I wonder if China can expand its trade with Germany."
Li Xin smiled and said, "May I ask what Germany has to export to China?"
When he said this, Li Xin was quite proud. The price of industrial products in China had been falling over the years. Although the scale of factories and workers' wages had increased, industrial efficiency had improved by leaps and bounds. The Military Governor Of Vaize had long introduced a production cost accounting system. If a product had not been technically modified, the approximate cost had already been calculated before production. Comparing similar products with foreign countries had always been an issue that China had attached great importance to.
The German parliamentarians could not come up with a specific content for the time being. In recent years, Europe and China had been trading more and more, and they had a deeper understanding of China. The European industrial countries coveted China, a huge market with a population of more than 800 million. However, China's industrial capacity was not inferior to Europe's, and China had far more raw materials than Europe.
Recently, the German parliament had a discussion on the import of China soap.
After this heated discussion, although Germany adopted a high tariff barrier policy, the sales of Chinese products in Germany did not suffer too much of a blow. For example, China's transparent soap was not more expensive than German soap after the German customs imposed a 50% tariff. Germany's vegetable oil production was very low, and animal oil soap could not avoid the smell of impurities. Compared to China's soap, the German soap industry could only be said to be barely hanging on.
The United Kingdom had adopted a free trade policy and had a great advantage in this area. The United Kingdom did not import China's soap, but imported a large amount of palm oil produced in China. There were many types of palm oil according to its melting point: 58 degrees, 52 degrees, 44 degrees, 33 degrees, and 24 degrees. 58 degrees was the most suitable for producing soap, as well as glycerin and other products. The United Kingdom imported a large amount of this 58 degrees palm oil and made it into soap in the United Kingdom. Not only was it supplied to the United Kingdom, but it also competed with China's soap in Europe.
There was also such a voice in the German parliament, hoping that when importing raw materials from China, they could reduce taxes or even make it free. However, making soap required soda ash. China's soap was cheap because China had the world's largest soda ash mine, but the export of soda ash was strictly restricted in China.
The United Kingdom had many colonies and adopted a free trade policy, so the United Kingdom's soda ash supply was much better than Germany's. Simply reducing tariffs on China's palm oil would not have an immediate help to the German soap industry. Without solving the soda ash supply and obtaining a large amount of cheap soda ash, the German soap industry had no future.
If the parliament could allow science to speak, such as inviting experts from the German Ministry of Commerce and the chemical industry to make a special explanation, the parliament could get a clear understanding of the law of the matter. However, a clear understanding did not equal a perfect solution.
After a "rational" discussion, the German parliament privately came up with three solutions.
The first was to force China to change its soda ash export policy and let China sell soda ash at a price lower than the current international market price. This method was obviously unrealistic. China did not lack the profit from exporting soda ash, and what benefit would China gain from exporting soda ash at a low price overseas?
The second was to find a lower price supplier in the market. The United Kingdom was now the world's hegemon and controlled the supply and pricing of many products. If they wanted to obtain cheaper raw materials, they would first have to ask the Royal Navy's warships if they agreed.
The third was to control the soda ash production through colonization. Colonists in history once crazily plundered the world's high-quality cheap resources, including the black slave trade. The former triangular trade maintained for hundreds of years. Germany was truly unified only a decade ago, and it was in the center of Europe. It was too close to the United Kingdom and too far away from God.
In the end, there was no final decision. The representatives of soaps and daily chemicals in the parliament could only accept the conclusion of "maintaining the status quo."
The expedition to China was completely beyond Germany's ability and imagination. If Germany really wanted to establish order based on its own economic interests, it would first have to overthrow the economic order that the United Kingdom spent hundreds of years building. The United Kingdom was not only a chain around Germany's neck, but it was a chain around the necks of the six major European countries.
Li Xin saw that the German parliament was unwilling to discuss the export of China's flagship products, so he changed the topic. "China and Russia do not have much trade, so we don't know the style of Russia. But listening to what the parliament members said, the Russians seem to have a problem with their credibility. "
As soon as he finished speaking, several parliament members almost shouted at the same time.
"The Russians have never had commercial credibility!"
"The Russians are robbers!"
"The Slavs are a group of barbarians!"
Li Xin held back an inexplicable smile. Under the care of the Military Governor Vaize, China's European-style compilation was very thorough. For example, in the history of Rome, the textbooks clearly stated the status of the "Romans" almost completely disappeared.
When the Germans said that the Slavs were barbarians, there was an inexplicable sense of humor. In the eyes of the Romans, who were considered the ancestors of Europe, both were genuine barbarians. When the Roman Republic and Empire existed, if the head wasn't black and the eyes were colorful, then they were barbarians.
Getting rid of this sense of humor, Li Xin went straight to the heart of the problem. "Is the commercial credibility of the Russians at this point? I see that the French and Russians do a lot of business. "
"The French borrow from Russia at a high interest rate, much higher than the interest rate they lend to other countries. Do you know why? "Fleming asked Li Xin.
Li Xin shook his head. "Why?"
Seeing that he knew more than the China Foreign Minister, Fleming immediately explained, "Because in order to avoid being reneged on half of the debt, and to ensure that the French make money. Now in the entire Europe, France is the only one willing to issue bonds for Russia to raise funds. All this required France to vouch for and endorse Russia. These are large capital flows, and the Russians don't dare to offend France. As for those small and medium-sized loans, no European country is not afraid of Russia's valuable bonds. "
"It's that scary?" Li Xin asked.
"It's that scary!" Fleming emphasized.
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