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China-EU relations
ChinaDiplomacy

German leader Olaf Scholz under scrutiny as he leads business delegation to China

  • Chancellor under pressure to take tougher line, while European allies fear trip will undermine efforts to talk to Beijing in ‘single voice’
  • Germany is, by far Europe’s biggest trader and investor with China

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German Chancellor Olaf Scholz will be the first Western European leader to visit Beijing since before the pandemic. Photo: EPA-EFE
Finbarr Berminghamin Brussels
When Olaf Scholz’s plane touches down in Beijing on Friday, it will mark the 23rd time a German chancellor has visited China since the normalisation of diplomatic relations 50 years ago.
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From Helmut Schmidt’s 1975 audience with a visibly ailing Mao Zedong, to Angela Merkel’s dozen trips between 2006 and 2019, each of the visiting leaders have tried to pry open the Chinese market to German industry.

But none of the visits have generated as ferocious a storm as Scholz’s.

The chancellor will be in Beijing for less than 24 hours, but his travel plans have sparked a huge debate in Germany and across Europe, pulling the country’s China policy further under the microscope.
The trip comes amid a broad pushback against China in Europe, a trend that began during the pandemic but accelerated after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, due to Beijing’s “no limits” partnership with Moscow.
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Scholz is under extreme pressure from coalition partners who are pushing for a tougher stance on China, European allies who are concerned that the trip is undermining efforts to talk to China in a “single voice”, and the United States, which has been advocating a “single theatre” approach to dealing with Russia and China.

But with the euro zone teetering on the brink of recession, and inflation riding above 10 per cent, the chancellor is adamant that China should not be treated in the same way as Russia.

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