German Chancellor Olaf Scholz was received on Friday morning, November 4, at the People’s Palace in Beijing by Chinese President Xi Jinping. Scholz, who is due to meet with Prime Minister Li Keqiang next, is the first European Union (EU) and G7 leader to visit China since the start of the pandemic. The strict zero Covid policy has led the world’s second largest economy to close its borders for almost three years.
Mr. Scholz’s trip to China “strengthen” cooperation with Germany, Xi Jinping said, according to state broadcaster CCTV. The German Chancellor, for his part, told the Chinese President that he wanted “develop further” economic cooperation with Beijing, despite “from different points of view”.
“We also want to discuss how we can develop our cooperation (…) on other topics: climate change, food security and indebted countries”said Mr. Scholz, according to a German government source to Agence France-Presse (AFP).
“Lonely Walk”
This one-day visit comes in a context of growing Western mistrust of the authoritarian Chinese regime. It comes just after the reappointment of Xi Jinping as head of the Chinese Communist Party and the country as a whole, and is seen with a critical eye not only in Germany, but also in France, Brussels and Washington.
Reconnecting with the visits to China of his predecessor, the Christian Democrat Angela Merkel (twelve trips in 16 years in power), the Social Democrat Scholz is taking along a whole delegation of industrialists, such as the bosses of Volkswagen and BASF. However, the dependence of the first economy of the EU on this autocracy, where German companies realize a significant part of their profits, is increasingly questioned.
“With his trip to China, the Chancellor is pursuing a foreign policy that is leading to a loss of confidence in Germany among our closest partners”castigated an opposition deputy, Norbert Röttgen, deploring “a solitary walk”.
And even within the government coalition, warnings are in order: the Minister of Foreign Affairs, the environmentalist Annalena Baerbock, urged “no longer depending on a country that does not share our values”at the risk of surrendering “politically vulnerable to blackmail”.
However, a few days before the trip, the German Chancellor authorized a Chinese stake in the Hamburg port terminal. Washington has also put pressure on Berlin to limit the share ceded to the Cosco group.
Beijing opposed to “any interference”
Trying to calm things down, Mr. Scholz had promised “not to ignore controversies” during this visit. In a column published just before his departure, the Chancellor said he was aware that “China today is not the same as it was five or ten years ago”citing in particular the recent congress of the Chinese Communist Party which cemented the power of President Xi Jinping. “If China changes, our relations with China must change too”admitted the German Chancellor, sketching a cautious change of course.
In the economic field, he does not envisage decoupling vis-à-vis China but a reduction in “unilateral dependencies” with “sense of proportion and pragmatism”.
He scratched the “difficult subjects” that he intended to address during his interviews. Among them, “respect for civil and political freedoms as well as the rights of ethnic minorities”such as the Muslim Uyghurs of Xinjiang.
But in Beijing, Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian warned: “The Chinese side is opposed to any interference in our internal affairs and any denigration under the guise of discussing human rights”.
The Chancellor also promised to discuss “the tense situation around Taiwan” and the war in Ukraine as China asserts its “neutrality” – seen by Westerners as tacit support for the Kremlin.