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German Chancellor Olaf Scholz became the first Western leader to travel to Beijing to meet with Xi Jinping since the Chinese coronavirus crisis on Friday.
Chancellor Scholz, of the leftist Social Democratic Party (SPD), made the trip alongside top industry leaders, including the CEOs of BMW, Bayer, Deutsche Bank, and Volkswagen, in order to shore up relations with Germany’s top trading partner as relations with its largest energy importer, Russia, have collapsed over the past year.
Speaking alongside soon-to-be-ousted Premier Li Keqiang, Scholz said in remarks reported by AFP: “We do not believe in ideas of decoupling [from Communist China] but it is also clear that that has something to do with economic ties as equals, with reciprocity.”
The statement has raised eyebrows, given that Xi Jinping was last month granted a third term as the General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party the only such leader since Mao Zedong to be elevated to such a status — meaning that the so-called “paramount leader” (read: emperor) likely sees no one on the world stage as his equal.
Indeed, Maximilian Terhalle, Professor of Geopolitics at the University of Potsdam, said in response to the comments from Scholz: “China does not see us as equal, Germany is only an instrument.”
The state visit from Scholz has been a centre of controversy in his home country and throughout the West, with fears being expressed that Germany is once again embarking on the path of becoming over-reliant upon dictatorial regimes for the sake of its economy.
Last month, the heads of Germany’s intelligence apparatus collectively warned that the Scholz government was being “naive” in trying to deepen economic ties with China on the heels of falling into an energy crisis due to its Russian gas addiction.
