Costs of the German Straitjacket

During the years following the fall of the Berlin Wall, Germany traded the geostrategic insecurity of a Cold War fault line and divided nation for a unified country with high levels of economic tension.  The transfer payments from the West to the East were politically and economically stressful.  The costs of reunification helped compel a rebalancing of accounts, a reduction in Germany's social welfare framework alongside renewed investment in its manufacturing and export sector.  China's mercurial growth and juggernaut manufacturing platform has been built in large part on German machine tools and equipment -- hitching Germany's economic fortunes to China's rising star.