The grounding of the container ship “Ever Given” blocked the Suez Canal in 2021. Global supply chains were disrupted. Was this just a harbinger of the enormous new challenges facing the system of “globalization”? In an evolving world order shaped by the tension between democracies and autocracies, German companies are forced to continue doing business with countries like China despite geopolitical risks, because they need China as both a market for their products and a supplier of raw materials.