BERLIN – German Chancellor Olaf Scholz is visiting China for the first time as German leader this week, a diplomatically sensitive trip as Germany as well as the European Union work on an approach to deal with an increasingly aggressive and totalitarian Beijing.
Scholz’s messages will be scrutinized closely. Whereas his well almost year-old government has indicated a shift away from predecessor Angela Merkel’s staunchly trade-first stance, he is leading a business delegation, and his trip comes in the wake of domestic uproar over a Chinese shipping company’s investment in a German container terminal.
All through his one-day visit on Friday, the leader of Europe’s biggest economy will meet President Xi Jinping as well as Premier Li Keqiang. His delegation will not stay in Beijing overnight because China continues to impose strict COVID-19 constraints.
Scholz’s visit, the first by a key EU leader in a long time, comes shortly after Xi was elected to a third term as chief of the ruling Communist Party as well as promoted allies who endorse his vision of strict restrictions over the economy and society. It is also accompanied by heightened tensions over Taiwan and comes on the heels of a U.N. Chinese violations of human rights against Uyghurs as well as other ethnic communities may add up to “crimes against humanity,” according to a report.
According to a top German official, who briefed news outlets anonymously in accordance with department guidelines, the visit was “an explorative trip” to determine “China’s stance, where China is going, and also what forms of collaboration are conceivable with this precise China in the world’s current predicament.”
The officer cited China’s “special responsibility” as a Russian ally to assist end the conflict in Ukraine as well as push Moscow to scale back its nuclear rhetoric; anxieties about growing tension in Taiwan and the wider region; Germany’s eagerness for a “level playing field” in trade relations; and Scholz’s current role as the Group of Seven industrial powers’ chair this year.
Whereas as political ties have deteriorated, business ties have grown stronger. For the sixth straight year, China was Germany’s most significant trading partner in 2021, its largest single source of imports, and its No. 2 export destination only after United States.
Scholz’s administration has attempted to strike a balance between those ties and acknowledgement that China is growingly a competitor and “systemic rival,” in addition to a partner on climate change and other issues. His three-party coalition has promised to develop a “complete China strategy.”
Something which is still in the works. However, Russia’s war in Ukraine is focusing minds as Germany deals with the consequences of relying on Russia for more than half of its natural gas supplies. Germany has worked hard this year to reduce its reliance, while Russia essentially cut off supplies.
Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock expressed concern on Sunday that “a blunder made by Germany in recent times with Russia could be replicated.” “We must avert that,” she told ARD television.
Baerbock’s remarks came as the government debated whether it should allow China’s COSCO to own 35% of a container terminal at the Hamburg port.
Baerbock and other members of two junior coalition parties resisted the agreement, while Scholz tried to downplay its importance. COSCO was granted permission to take a stake of less than 25%, the threshold above which an investor can veto a company’s decisions.
Scholz appears to be taking a middle ground on China. Unlike his two immediate previous leaders, he chose Japan as his first Asian desired location instead of China. He encourages businesses to diversify while not dissuading trade with China.
“Nobody is saying we are obliged to leave there, we cannot export there any longer, we can’t invest there, and we can’t import from China any longer,” he said following a EU summit last month.
However, in a growingly multipolar world, “we shouldn’t focus solely on just a few countries,” he said, emphasizing the importance of “not placing all your eggs in one basket.”
During the same summit, EU leaders explored reducing their reliance on China for technology as well as raw materials, and they agreed to insist on a stronger balance of economic ties while cooperating with Beijing on world issues.
Scholz declared in an article for the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung that he’s traveling “as a European,” and Berlin consulted extensively with European as well as transatlantic collaborators prior to the visit. “Germany’s China policy will only be effective if it is incorporated into a European China policy,” he said.
According to Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian, Scholz’s visit “will infuse fresh opportunity” into the advancement of the two countries’ “comprehensive strategic partnership” as well as “make a contribution to world peace, stability, and development.”
“Current Sino-German interactions can be described as ‘cold politically and hot economically,'” stated “Ding Chun, director of China’s Fudan University’s Center for European Studies, using a phrase frequently used to describe Beijing’s relations with Japan. Ding, on the other hand, believes the visit will help encourage bilateral ties by demonstrating commitment to economic ties as well as multilateralism in the face of calls for “decoupling.”
Many people in Germany are wary.
According to Guntram Wolff, director of the German Council on Foreign Relations, Scholz should warn China against significant support for Russia in the Ukraine war, as well as state clearly to its leaders that Germany is dedicated to EU unity toward Beijing and to German managers the magnitude of the geopolitical tensions they may face.
A few recent decisions “appeared to follow in the Merkel custom, in which people believed they could generate change through commerce and so on,” he said.
Thomas Haldenwang, the head of Germany’s domestic intelligence agency, likened the turmoil in Ukraine to climate change, saying that “Russia is the storm, China is climate change.”
Several human rights organizations have urged Scholz to cancel his trip, but German officials contend that avoiding dialogue will accomplish nothing.
