Olaf Scholz will visit China for three whole days. He brings with him demands from the German economy - but the war in Ukraine also accompanies the Chancellor.
A trip to China is something like the supreme discipline of German foreign policy. Despite some concrete improvements in China, there is still no real change of course in Beijing, says Max Zenglein, chief economist at the Berlin China think tank Merics. For Xi, the economy for China has an extraordinary role, especially in comparison to the large economies of the U.S. and Japan, says Zeng Klein. The federal government is skeptical about the punitive tariffs being brought into play by the EU Commission in view of the flood of Chinese imports into the global economy. Berlin says that China continues to be the Federal Republic's most important trading partner, albeit only by a very small margin compared to the USA. The issue of overcapacity in China is “one of the most urgent issues that must be addressed and recognized by politicians as one of the greatest burdens,” emphasized Thomas König, head of the China department at the Asia Pacific Committee of the German Economy.