Germany kinda does have its own Baidu - just in sectors it actually has competence in. Retail, heavy industry, etc is full of German brands. The problem with so

Germany kinda does have its own Baidu - just in sectors it actually has competence in. Retail, heavy industry, etc is full of German brands. The problem with software is it's simply a bad fit for German culture, which is generally slow, cautious, and interested in stability over short term profit. I don't think it's exactly vassalization - I think it's more that the 'international rules based order' was created by the USA and EU, and as such, to an extent, represents their interests. If all markets are open, it gives current market leaders and incumbents a unbeatable advantage. What's more, rich countries typically play the system for all that its worth. China is controversial because unlike Germany, or France, it plays the system to win, but it also has the growth potential (size, population) to upturn the global order. So when France cheats the system to protect french farmers or cheese or whatever, nobody cares, or when Germany's KfW behaves in a neocolonial manner, again, it's just not a threat to the global order. When China does stuff like this, even in milder forms, it couples with their extreme lack of basic soft-power competence (listen to chinese leaders speak, they sound like assholes) to make a stink.