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  3. No big developed country has come out of the global recession looking strong

No big developed country has come out of the global recession looking strong

游客2023-11-14  21
问题     No big developed country has come out of the global recession looking stronger than Germany has. The economy minister, Rainer Briiderle, boasts of an "XL upswing". Exports are booming and unemployment is expected to fall to levels last seen in the early 1990s. The government is a stable, though sometimes fractious, coalition of three mainstream parties. The shrillest protest is aimed at a huge new railway project in Stuttgart. Amid the truculence and turmoil around it, Germany appears an oasis of tranquillity.
    To many of its friends and neighbours, though, the paragon is a disappointment. Its sharp-elbowed behaviour during the near-collapse of the euro earlier this year heightened concerns about Germany’s role in the world that have been stirring ever since unification 20 years ago. A recent essay published by Bruegel, a Brussels think-tank, explains "why Germany fell out of love with Europe". Another, from the European Council on Foreign Relations, alleges that Germany is "going global alone". Jiirgen Habermas, Germany’s most distinguished living philosopher, accuses his country of pursuing an "inward-looking national policy". "How can you not ask Germany questions about its vision of the future of Europe?" wonders Jacques Delors, who was president of the European Commission when the Berlin Wall fell. Even a pacific and prosperous Germany causes international angst.
    The German question never dies. Instead, like a flu virus, it mutates. Even today’s mild strain causes aches and pains, which afflict different regions in different ways. America’s symptoms are mild. Central Europe seems to have acquired immunity. After unification 85 % of Poles looked upon Germany as a threat, recalls Eugeniusz Smolar of the Centre for International Relations in Warsaw. Now just a fifth do. It is among Germany’s long-standing west and south European partners that the German question feels debilitating, and where a dangerous flare-up still seems a possibility. Germany’s answer to the question matters not only to them. It will shape Europe, and therefore the world.
    Germans have not forgotten that their country was the author of the horrors of the 1930s and 1940s, but, says Renate Kocher of Allensbach, a polling firm, they want to "draw a line under the past". That does not mean ignoring its lessons or neglecting to teach them to the next generation. A new exhibition on "Hitler and the Germans" at the German Historical Museum in Berlin is drawing blockbuster crowds. But Germans are no longer so ready to be put on the moral defensive or to view the Nazi era as the defining episode of their past. Even non-Germans seem willing to move on. Recent books like "Germania" and "The German Genius" suggest that English-language publishing may be entering a post-swastika phase. Germany still atones but now also preaches, usually on the evils of debt, the importance of nurturing industry and the superiority of long-term thinking in enterprise. Others are disposed to listen. "Everyone orients himself towards Germany," says John Kornblum, a former American ambassador.  [br] The "question" in "Germany’s answer to the question matters not only to them. It will shape Europe, and therefore the world" (the third paragraph) refers to______.
选项 A、how to draw a lesson from the past of Germany
B、what role should Germany play in the world
C、what should be done to confront the global recession
D、how to avoid the truculence and turmoil beyond Europe
答案 B
解析 推理题。第三段末尾提到的“这个问题”亦为第二三段讲述的中心问题，即德国在世界舞台所扮演的角色，故选B，其他选项没有在文中提及，为干扰项。
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