BERLIN, Germany
Trade, climate change and the
war in Ukraine are on the agenda Tuesday as German Chancellor Olaf Scholz meets
Chinese Premier Li Qiang, who is on his first foreign trip since taking office.German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, right, welcomes Chinese Premier Li Qiang for a meeting at the Chancellery in Berlin, Germany, Monday, June 19, 2023.
The meeting in Berlin is the
seventh time Germany and China have held high-level government consultations
and comes a day after Chinese
President Xi Jinping met with U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, indicating an
effort by Beijing to reach out to the West and improve frosty relations.
Li, a former Communist Party
secretary for Shanghai who took
office in March as China’s No. 2 official, met
Monday with German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier and had dinner
with Scholz at the Chancellery before the start of formal talks.
Germany is keen to maintain
good ties with China, its biggest trading partner, despite wariness over
Beijing’s growing assertiveness and refusal to criticize the Russian invasion
of Ukraine. Germany’s recently published national
security strategy describes China as “a partner, competitor and
systemic rival.”
Scholz has said he wants to
avoid overreliance on Chinese trade and diversify Germany’s supply of key goods
— an approach he called “derisking” — while rejecting the idea of “decoupling”
from China. The position was echoed last month by the Group
of Seven leading industrial powers, most of which are heavily
dependent on trade with China.
Still, Germany has
acknowledged that major global problems such as climate change can only be
resolved together with China, and the official motto of Tuesday’s meeting is
“Acting sustainably together.”German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier, right, welcomes Chinese Premier Li Qiang for a meeting at Bellevue Palace in Berlin, Germany, Monday, June 19, 2023.
Chinese Foreign Ministry
spokesperson Wang Wengbin said last week that the choice of Germany as Li’s
first stop “fully reflects the high importance China attaches to China-Germany
relations.” He said China looked forward to “sending positive signals to the
world to strengthen dialogue and cooperation” and joining to address challenges
“so as to promote the prosperity and development of the world economy.”
After visiting the European
Union’s biggest economy Li travels to France — the second-biggest — where he
will attend the “Summit for a New Global Financing Pact,” which is being held
at French President Emmanuel Macron’s initiative.
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