2023-06-20 09:23:11
BERLIN (AP) — Trade, climate change and the war in Ukraine were on the agenda at a meeting Tuesday between German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and Chinese Premier Li Qiang on their first trip to the U.S. foreigner since he took office.
The Berlin summit is the seventh time that Germany and China have held high-level consultations and comes a day following the meeting between Chinese President Xi Jinping and US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, which signaled the effort of Beijing for reaching out to the West and improving their icy relations.
Li, who served as Communist Party secretary in Shanghai until he took over as China’s second most powerful official in March, met German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier on Monday and dined with Scholz at the Foreign Ministry before their formal meeting.
Germany is willing to maintain good relations with China, its biggest trading partner, despite misgivings regarding Beijing’s growing firmness and its refusal to criticize Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Berlin recently published a national security strategy that describes China as “a systemic partner, competitor and rival.”
Scholz has signaled that he wants to avoid excessive reliance on Chinese trade and diversify the country’s supply of key goods, while rejecting the idea of ”disengaging” from China. His stance was shared last month by the Group of Seven major industrial powers, most of which rely heavily on trade with the Asian giant.
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