Germany has never been only a nation of poets and thinkers. It has above all been a nation of engineers. Few sectors embodied that claim as visibly as the automobile industry. “Made in Germany” stood for precision, reliability, craftsmanship and for decades conferred foreign-policy weight on the Federal Republic. That very foundation is now under pressure. Not by chance, but by design: China’s industrial policy offensive is targeting a sector with maximum leverage. In the logic of great competitors, that