Germany, China hold high-level meeting amid tensions over trade, Ukraine

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.