Visit to China by German Chancellor Scholz shows divisions in EU over how to engage with Beijing on trade and Russia
- In public remarks in China, Scholz did not throw support behind Brussels’ de-risking agenda and focused primarily on German business interests
- ‘It’s a disaster … it shows how nationally Scholz played this and how non-European he has been,’ analyst says
At a press conference in the Chinese capital on Tuesday evening, Scholz said meetings with Chinese President Xi Jinping and Premier Li Qiang had been “calm, careful and honest”.
“For me, it is important to make clear that there is an urgent need not to supply Russia with arms. But of course, the dual-use question also belongs to that question. It has been possible to raise all the necessary issues here in a way that cannot be misunderstood,” said the chancellor, who declined to comment on whether he had extracted any new commitments from Xi.
“Competition must be fair,” Scholz said in an address to students in Shanghai on Monday, in rhetoric that was a world away from the hardline approach favoured in Brussels these days. “We want a level playing field, of course we want our companies to have no restrictions.”
