Despite criticism, Olaf Scholz visits China with the economic agenda as the protagonist

First modification: 04/11/2022 – 03:30

It is the first official visit by a G7 leader to the People’s Republic of China since the coronavirus pandemic began. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz will arrive in Beijing for a quick visit in which he will meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping. A meeting that does not please some members of the center-left political coalition that supports Scholz. Nor to public opinion in Germany, because they fear that the meeting could translate into greater dependence on the second largest economy in the world.

However, Olaf Scholz has met the criticism and justifies his visit to China because he assures that the main objective of the meeting is to seek Beijing’s support in condemning Russia for the war in Ukraine. In addition, Scholz insists that he is aware of the risk and commercial competition that China represents, not only for Germany, but also for the European Union (EU), a community bloc that the foreign minister seeks to represent during the visit.

Members of the German government, such as the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Annalena Baerbock, have been clear in distrusting China and in the framework of the chancellor’s visit they have expressed the importance of not depending on a country that “does not share the same values ​​as Germany ”. But Olaf Scholz is trying to play tightrope walker and tip the balance in which the trade link with the Asian giant currently weighs more heavily.

“We don’t want to cut ourselves off from China, but we can’t rely too much on it.” This is how Olaf Scholz titled his opinion column in the middle Political Europe, an unusual occurrence in recent German politics. In it he defends his visit to China with arguments based on the latest developments shaping Beijing’s relationship with the West. A clear turning point in this relationship is the 20th Congress of the Chinese Communist Party held on October 15.

For Scholz, this congress evidenced the new course of China under the third term of Xi Jinping, the most powerful Chinese leader since Mao Zedong, and who has finished catapulting the People’s Republic of China as a global power that demands an active participation in the world decisions. The German chancellor claims that “the China of today is not the same as the China of five or ten years ago,” and therefore Berlin’s treatment of Beijing must change, according to Scholz.

Security and national autonomy are sensitive issues for the Asian giant on its agenda for the next five years, which worries Germany about a potential aggressive policy by China towards Taiwan. However, the central theme of the German diplomatic visit to China is the economy. This generates criticism from human rights organizations, which urge Scholz to speak about political prisoners or the situation of the Uyghur Muslim minority in Xinjiang province.

The economic agenda as a protagonist

Germany tries to learn from the mistakes of the past. Foreign Minister Olaf Scholz wants to avoid a dependency on China similar to the one his country had with the Russian Federation in energy matters before the invasion of Ukraine. But cutting trade links between Berlin and Beijing is tricky. This year, German investment in China reached a record figure of 10,000 million euros and well-known companies, such as Volkswagen, have investments of almost 50% in the Asian country.

The economy is so important in this visit that, together with Chancellor Scholz, a delegation of business leaders will travel, including the CEOs of Volkswagen, BMW and Siemens. German companies concerned about high levels of inflation, which have even reached 10%.

Germany’s trade deficit with China is around 41 billion euros as a result of a relationship of more than five years promoted by former Chancellor Angela Merkel, in which China became Germany’s largest trading partner with volumes exceeding 245,000 millions of euros.

This economic dependence is not exclusive to Germany, but also to the European Union. Brussels significantly increased its relationship with China in 2021 after overcoming the worst months of the pandemic. China is the main import partner of the European bloc and the third destination for exports of machinery and vehicles, chemical products and other manufactured products.

Visit under US supervision

Olaf Scholz “is testing the waters of the relationship between China and Germany, Europe, even the West. If this visit is successful, Macron will come a month later,” Wang Yiwei, director of the Center for European Studies at Renmin University, told Reuters.

Precisely the French president, Emmanuel Macron, would have proposed to Scholz that they travel together to China to show the unity of the EU, but the chancellor would have refused, according to German government sources.

The main opponent to this visit is the United States, which is vigilant of the steps of the German government and has already criticized economic treaties between Scholz and Xi such as the Hamburg Port Agreement, Germany’s main port, which would be acquired almost entirely by Beijing. At the last minute, Berlin backed down and proposed the acquisition of just over 50% of the port.

This interference by the White House in Sino-German relations made China react through its Foreign Ministry spokesman, Zhao Lijian, who stated that “the interference of the United States is a symptom of its practice of coercive diplomacy”.

Meanwhile, Olaf Scholz, without wanting to obfuscate either China or a military and economic ally like the United States, says that the White House’s new National Security Strategy correctly emphasizes the objective of preventing a new confrontation between opposing blocs. In this way, Scholz seeks to justify his rapprochement with China. And furthermore, the chancellor clarifies that while he is in Beijing, the federal president of Germany will be in Japan and Korea.

With Reuters and local media