Chancellor Olaf Scholz left for an eleven-hour inaugural visit to Beijing on Thursday. There he will meet President Xi Jinping on Friday – as the first Western head of government since his re-election as party leader. He also wants to meet Premier Li Keqiang. The timing of the trip is disputed. Chinese dissidents and the World Uyghur Congress had even called for it to be cancelled.
Shortly before his departure, Scholz announced a new approach to China in the “Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung”. “Today’s China is not the same as it was five or ten years ago,” he wrote. “It is clear that if China changes, the way we deal with China must also change.”
Scholz announced that he did not want to ignore “difficult issues” in his talks with the Chinese leadership. “This includes respect for civil and political liberties and the rights of ethnic minorities, for example in Xinjiang province.” The United Nations Human Rights Office accuses Beijing of suppressing the predominantly Muslim Uyghurs in Xinjiang.
Scholz expressed concern about the tense situation around Taiwan and indirectly warned China of an invasion. “Like the United States and many other countries, we are pursuing a one-China policy. However, this means that the status quo can only be changed peacefully and by mutual consent.”
Due to strict corona measures in China, the visit will be shorter than any other Chancellor’s trip to the most populous country in the world before. Scholz will be accompanied by a business delegation that will include about a dozen managers, including the CEOs of Volkswagen, BASF, Siemens and Deutsche Bank.
