Germany strengthens its ties with Australia as its springboard for projection of power in the Pacific.
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Students of Bible prophecy are aware that in the latter days a northern power is set to spread its imperial reign “south and east” and ultimately into Jerusalem (Daniel 8:9).
In 1995 Australia and Germany signed the Australia-Germany Partnership 2000 Action Plan. This agreement, vigorously supported by Australia’s prime minister at the time, Paul Keating, and the then German Chancellor Helmut Kohl, mapped out Germany’s future in Australia.
The Germans wanted to use the Western outpost of Australia as their regional headquarters of operations, in a cash-for-power-base deal. To Australian leaders, the deal sounded almost too good to be true. Sorely in need of foreign capital investment, like a kid in a candy store they agreed to the deal.
As a result, German investment in Australia more than doubled between 1995 and 1997. Germany began to flood Australia with goods and services, becoming the country’s third-largest importer behind the United States and Japan.
Then, in February 1999, German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer, in cooperation with Australia’s Liberal-National government, revised the Australia-Germany Partnership 2000 Action Plan, expanding economic relations between the two countries significantly. The revamped deal covered a huge array of industries, from trade, investment, tourism, education, the environment and science to technology, culture and the arts.
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As time progressed, Thyssen, Daimler-Benz, Hochtief, Lurgi, Bilfinger, Berger, VDO, Hoechst, Siemens and Hella all created networks of partnerships throughout the country, and the German airline Lufthansa established its Asian booking headquarters in Melbourne.
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So it is that, using its classic postwar tactic, Germany first established a dependency by Australia on the provision of needed services and sources of capital and trade, only to then turn to the real motivation behind such moves, which is to establish a strategic platform from which to extend its political influence throughout a wider region.
“Berlin is preparing itself for the decentralization of world politics from the Atlantic to the Pacific and is strengthening its position in Australia. The land is a ‘strategic trampoline into the Asian-Pacific room,’ explained Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle while signing a ‘declaration of intent on a strategic partnership’ with Canberra at the beginning of this week in Berlin.
“The ‘strategic partnership’ will make it possible for Germany to take much more influence over Australia than before in the immediate environment of the unbroken rising People’s Republic of China and so play a more active role in future central conflicts between the West and Beijing. This document includes references to specifically military and political measures in the planning for a ‘strategic partnership’” (German-Foreign-Policy.com, January 31; translation ours).
Full article: Australia—Germany’s Strategic Pacific Partner (The Trumpet)
Global Geopolitics 