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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2024-10-01  43
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] We can infer from "To many of its friends and neighbours, though, the paragon is a disappointment" (in Paragraph 2) that______.
选项 A、Germany is going through ups and downs after the global recession
B、Germany has passed its peak
C、chances are it’s heading towards "an outward-looking Germany"
D、its strength is posing a new threat to other countries
答案 D
解析 推理题。文章第二段讲述了各国对德国势力的担忧，最后一句更是指出了和平与繁荣的德国亦会引起国际社会的忧虑，可知德国力量正在给其他国家造成不同程度的恐慌，故选D。
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