Chancellor Olaf Scholz left on Saturday for a three-day trip to China, during which he will meet the president Xi Jinping after stops in the cities of Chongqing and Shanghai.
He is scheduled to arrive in Beijing on Tuesday for political talks that will focus on Russia’s war against Ukraine, tensions with Taiwan and trade.
Western countries have sought to isolate Moscow amid Russia’s all-out invasion of its neighbor, but Beijing is the Kremlin’s key ally while remaining outwardly neutral. China’s leadership has not condemned the Russian war, instead blaming the West for the conflict.
Scholz discussed Russia’s actions in Ukraine with Xi during his visit to Beijing a year and a half ago, and Xi later spoke out against Russian threats to use nuclear weapons. This time the question could be whether China will take part in a peace conference for Ukraine in Switzerland in mid-June. The success of the talks could depend on Beijing’s participation.
China is also keen to initiate a process to end the conflict, but is suspected of simultaneously supplying Russia with goods that can be used for military purposes, an issue that Scholz could also address.
“It is important that China does not support Russia in waging a brutal war against its neighbor Ukraine,” Scholz told the daily before his departure.
Relations between China and Taiwan, meanwhile, are strained as Beijing considers self-governing democracy part of its territory, even though Taiwan has had an independent government since 1949.
China is Germany’s most important trading partner and around a dozen managers from leading German companies are expected to join Scholz, including
the top executives of the automobile manufacturers Mercedes-Benz and BMW as well as the chemical company BASF. This time no one from Volkswagen, Europe’s largest car manufacturer, is part of the delegation.
Berlin’s China strategy aims to reduce its economic dependence to avoid sudden economic shocks, such as when Moscow stopped its gas supplies to Germany after the start of the war in Ukraine.
However, German business leaders are skeptical because the approximately 5,000 German companies in China are more concerned about unfair competitive conditions and sales figures.
Meanwhile, cheap Chinese electric cars are flooding the European market, prompting Brussels to launch an investigation into possible illegal subsidies. Countermeasures could trigger a trade war, which particularly worries German car manufacturers.
Scholz is expected to be accompanied in Beijing by Agriculture Minister Cem Özdemir, Transport Minister Volker Wissing and Environment Minister Steffi Lemke.
The German leader also wants to address human rights issues during his trip, particularly concerns about the treatment of the Muslim Uyghur minority in Xinjiang province and freedom of expression.
Human rights organizations want the Chancellor to clearly address the Chinese leadership on these issues, and Scholz said that for him speaking openly about such issues was part of a “dialogue at eye level.”
It is Scholz’s second trip to China since taking office at the end of 2021, although he only spent one day there in November 2022 due to the pandemic. This three-day trip is longer than any other visit he made to a single country during his trip as Chancellor.
First he will stop in Chongqing, the largest city in the world with around 32 million inhabitants on the Yangtze River. There and then in Shanghai, Scholz will visit German companies and also speak to students.