Chinese President Xi Jinping received German Chancellor Olaf Scholz in Beijing on Friday, the first meeting between the Chinese leader and a Western leader since he secured a third five-year term in office last month.
Although Xi greeted the German leader without a mask, the two refrained from shaking hands and sat down to talk at two long tables that kept them at a distance, according to the German agency DPA.
During Scholz’s inaugural visit to the country as head of the German government, the two leaders are scheduled to hold talks on a range of issues in Beijing’s Great Hall of the People, including bilateral relations, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and tensions over Taiwan’s status.
Scholz has previously described the appointment as a «sincere» meeting with the country’s authorities with an eye toward improved bilateral relations «The pursuit of national security and national autonomy will become more important for China in the future. And as the country changes, the way we deal with it must change as well,» he has asserted.
Thus, he has admitted that the war in Ukraine has changed international relations, but said that, «even in these circumstances, China remains an important trade and business partner for Germany and Europe. «We do not want to dissociate ourselves from it (…) but we cannot depend on it either», he reiterated.
In this sense, he has stressed that Germany will seek to end «unilateral dependencies» in relation to certain products or technologies, which includes Chinese investments in Germany. «We will differentiate according to whether that business creates or increases risk dependencies,» he explained in relation to the recent controversy raised as a result of the investment made by a Chinese shipping company in the port of Hamburg, in the north of the country.
