The big immigration lie: Germany’s BASF opens the most modern chemical plant in the world – in China

This is the sixth part in the Remix News series, “The big immigration lie,” which explores Asia’s innovation leap over Western countries, despite Asian nations like China, South Korea, Taiwan, and Japan promoting closed-border economies that rejects mass immigration (part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, and part 5).

The most modern chemical factory in the world, according to Germany’s prestigious FAZ newspaper, is being built by Germany’s BASF for €9 billion. However, this factory is not being built in Germany. Instead, the modern BASF composite site is located in China’s Zhanjiang on the island of Donghai, and is so large that it is referred to as a “spaceship” which covers four square kilometers, or the equivalent of “five to six hundred football fields and many more rice fields.”

While one major factor in Germany’s chemical production woes is high energy costs, chemical production is far from the only field in which Germany is falling behind. In areas such as renewable energy, automobile production, humanoid robotics, microchips, AI, machine tools, and ship building, Asian countries are leaping into the future, while countries like Germany are mired in growing debt, dysfunctional school systems, and growing insecurity.

This has not been lost on political leaders in Germany either, with Alternative for Germany (AfD) co-leader Alice Weidel writing on X: “BASF is investing billions in China and opening the world’s most modern chemical plant, while jobs are being cut here at home. That’s a warning sign: The high energy costs from the disastrous energy transition are driving deindustrialization forward!”

BASF investiert Milliarden in China und eröffnet das modernste Chemiewerk der Welt, während bei uns Stellen abgebaut werden. Das ist ein Warnsignal: Die hohen Energiekosten durch die verhängnisvolle Energiewende treiben die Deindustrialisierung voran! https://t.co/8vxqfWLmod

— Alice Weidel (@Alice_Weidel) March 27, 2026

FAZ notes the incredible contrast the new BASF plant has with the surrounding countryside, where farmers still wear “large comical bamboo hats” and work in rice fields. Many of them are elderly farmers working in a manner that gives “a glimpse into ancient China.” The new BASF plant illustrates the massive leaps China continues to make as it not only drives towards modernization but now increasingly out-innovates Western nations.

The site, which is centered around a “steam cracker, which splits the hydrocarbons” into products ranging from toothpaste, shampoos, detergents, or even materials for cars, may have cost €9 billion to construct, but in Europe, it would cost 20 to 40 percent more than to build in China and probably cost €25 billion in the United States.

The factory was quickly completed by 35,000 workers and was of an unmatched scale.

Merkel was behind the BASF plant

The project’s origin dates back to 2018, when “Angela Merkel and Chinese Prime Minister Li Keqiang watched over” the signing of the agreement. However, “political support from the German side has crumbled” since then.

At the recent opening, German politicians were absent, and Economics Minister Katherina Reiche provided only a “5-minute video message” while “struggling with the Zhanjiang debate.”

In contrast, the Chinese side showed strong local support, with the governor of Guangdong calling for “further investments from BASF.” Addressing domestic concerns regarding “deindustrialization and an increase in dependencies,” BASF CEO Markus Kamieth was firm. He told journalists that “the word of dependencies is ‘misguided’” and argued that “opportunities are being seized in China.”

He further asserted that “a BASF” that failed in the Chinese market “would be a weaker BASF,” noting that “China is not Iran or Russia” and the company does not “come into conflict with your own values.”

The article also notes that Zhanjiang may be small by Chinese standards, with a population of 440,000, but it is fully backing BASF.

Kamieth expressed gratitude for the “support of the Chinese government” and praised the “cooperation with local authorities,” noting that “entire classes from vocational schools have been hired.”

The rapid development of the region has been a point of amazement for the BASF CEO. Recalling the early stages of the project, he remarked, “In 2020 it was all still vision.” He referred specifically to the “infrastructure that was promised to him at the time,” such as a new airport and port expansions. Looking at the completed site today, he concluded, “But it all happened exactly like that.”

As Remix News has noted, China is known for its incredibly strict immigration policy to ensure cultural and societal harmony, while emphasizing utilizing its own human capital and people to power its economy. In fact, as noted frequently in this series, China has fewer foreigners in the entire nation of 1.4 billion than Germany has in just one city, Berlin. Yet, Europe is the one headed to China on bended knee to beg for economic help.

To add to the dilemma, the education systems of most Western nations are in shambles, in large part due to mass immigration. This means that while Asia is investing in its future, even if that future includes a shrinking population, countries like Germany are piling billions into a failed ideology of mass immigration that is only exacerbating economic decline.

In the end, the West can import millions from Africa and the Middle East, but these regions of the world feature incredibly low patent activity, low innovation, and very few examples of successful high-end manufacturing. BASF shows that Germany’s largest companies are investing in Asia despite the left’s claims that mass immigration would fuel an economic boom and pay for the country’s pensioners.

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