German Chancellor Olaf Scholz will travel to China on Saturday, where he will meet President Xi Jinping on the 16th in his second visit to the Asian giant since taking office at the end of 2021.
German government spokesman Steffen Hebestreit announced the three-day trip this Monday during a routine executive press conference, in which he stressed that Scholz’s exact program was still being “intensively” developed.
A meeting is already scheduled for Tuesday the 16th with Xi Jinping, and later with Prime Minister Li Qiang, with whom he will take part in consultations of the Sino-German Economic Consultative Committee.
Hebestreit, who declined to comment on whether Scholz believes Xi Jinping is a dictator, as his foreign minister Annalena Baerbock said last year, said Germany was taking a “tripartite” approach to Beijing.
On the one hand, China and Germany are competitors and rivals who have to live side by side, and on the other, they are partners.
“China is an important power, including in geopolitical issues, starting with the conflict in Ukraine, as well as in the South China Sea or the Pacific Ocean, as well as in its negotiations with the United States,” the official said.
“All of this will definitely be raised by the chancellor in his talks” with Xi and Li, he said.
Hebestreit recalled that Scholz had always said that China could not be separated from the global economy, but that Germany must diversify its economy beyond the Chinese market, which is why the chancellor recently visited Vietnam, Singapore and Indonesia.
Scholz already visited Xi Jinping in November 2022, becoming the first European leader to meet the Chinese president in person in more than two years.
At the bilateral meeting, which was part of a much shorter trip, both the German chancellor and the Chinese president condemned the threat of nuclear weapons in Ukraine.
In March 2023, Xi Jinping personally warned his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin in Moscow against the use of nuclear weapons in Ukraine, according to media outlets such as the Financial Times.
Scholz’s visit came just days after Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov visited Beijing, one of Moscow’s closest allies.
Germany does not expect any change of position on the part of China, which at one time came up with a peace initiative that neither the West nor Ukraine liked, but Berlin hopes that Beijing will “exert its influence on Russia to facilitate a peaceful resolution of the conflict.” in Ukraine”.
The German prime minister will travel to China alone, but will be accompanied in Beijing by Agriculture Minister Cem Oezdemir, Environment Minister Steffi Lemke and Transport and Digital Media Minister Volker Wissing.
The trip comes as the European Commission is investigating subsidies for Chinese electric vehicles and in the context of a debate over possible tariffs that Scholz has already opposed, Hebestreit recalled.
Scholz, who will also be accompanied by a delegation of businessmen, will travel to the central Chinese city of Chongqing, home to some 33 million citizens, before landing in Beijing on Sunday, where he will visit a factory owned by a specialist German company. towards the production of environmentally friendly hydrogen fuel.
On Monday the 15th, the German Chancellor will visit Shanghai, where he will visit a German plastics company that works with environmentally friendly and sustainable technologies and give a speech at a university, followed by a debate.
Author: Lusa
Source: CM Jornal
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