How German leader Olaf Scholz walked a fine line in China

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz balanced his country's economic interests and European strategic concerns on his trip to China last week but it will take much more to dispel doubts on the continent about Beijing, according to analysts.

Scholz's high-profile visit, his first to China as the German chancellor, was criticised from the start, with European Green Party politician Reinhard Butikofer calling it "the most controversially debated visit in the country for the last 50 years".

It comes as both Germany and the European Union revisit their China policy to tackle concerns about China's economic practices and human rights record.

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Berlin's decision to allow state-owned China Ocean Shipping Company to become a shareholder of a terminal at Germany's busiest port also triggered national security concerns from his Western partners, including the US.

Before leaving for Beijing, Scholz said he recognised that the EU had become too economically dependent on China but insisted that Germany should not decouple from China or heed "calls by some" to isolate the country.

In his meeting with Scholz on Friday, Chinese President Xi Jinping sought to reaffirm that position, calling on Germany and the EU to not attach to "any third party" and to retain their strategic autonomy.

The two leaders pledged to deepen economic cooperation and joint efforts in other areas, including Covid-19, food security and climate change.

For his part, Scholz asked for reciprocal market access and protection of intellectual property rights for German businesses.

He also raised the issue of Taiwan, saying that any change in relation to the island should be peaceful and consensual. On human rights, he said he believed the principles were universal values rather than an "internal matter".

And in what appeared to be a major win for Scholz's Beijing trip, Xi voiced opposition to the use of nuclear weapons, a clear response to criticism that China had not directly condemned Russia over its actions in Ukraine.

Frederick Kliem, a Germany and EU expert from the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, said the German leader managed to walk a fine line with his trip.

"Scholz has managed to strike the delicate balance between his visit, which I believe was both appropriate and necessary, and the legitimate concerns that exist within his own government and among some of Germany's Western allies, especially the US," Kleim said.

"He did not allow outside noise to distract him, and he pursued his mission in China, which is ultimately in Germany's interests."

The trip also yielded a number of commercial deals - Scholz said BioNTech's Covid-19 vaccines would be approved for use on foreigners in China, and China Aviation Supplies signed a US$17 billion agreement with Airbus to buy 140 aircraft.

Pang Zhongying, an international politics professor at Sichuan University, said the business delegation travelling with Scholz reflected the importance of the Chinese market to Germany.

The delegation included representatives from pharma firm BioNTech, carmakers Volkswagen and BMW and Deutsche Bank - "general industries, not from sectors that are extremely strategically important", Pang said.

"[Germany's] economic cooperation with China will be maintained ... but will not be as positive on sensitive sectors involving strategic concerns and security of supply chains," he said.

Cui Hongjian, an Europe expert at the China Institute of International Studies, said Germany would need to weigh up the cost of reducing its reliance on China, particularly as it tried to cut its dependence on Russian energy and diversify its economy amid the fallout from the war in Ukraine.

"On top of cutting off ... imports of energy and resources [from Russia], cutting off the market [from China] would be economic suicide," Cui said.

But Noah Barkin, an expert in EU-China relations at Rhodium Group, said the trip would deepen concerns among Germany's key allies in "Europe and beyond that it is trying to have it both ways with China, as it tried and failed to do with Russia".

"It will be important for Scholz to send clear signals at home and abroad in coming months that this is not the case," Barkin wrote on Twitter.

Pang, from Sichuan University, said the visit would not dispel Europe's concerns about China but it was a key first step for China to show its policy towards the West following the Communist Party's leadership reshuffle last month.

He said the trip showed that China's new leadership was committed to maintaining good relations with Europe, amid its tensions with the US.

"If [China] can maintain the relationship with the European Union in a constructive way, this is still very important for the relationship between China and the West and its relationship between the United States," Pang said.

Renmin University professor Wang Yiwei agreed that the Xi-Scholz meeting was a good first step.

"I think if this kind of contact can be maintained, and if President Xi can visit Europe and Germany next year, that will be enough [for them to work out their differences]."

Additional reporting by Phoebe Zhang

This article originally appeared in the South China Morning Post (SCMP), the most authoritative voice reporting on China and Asia for more than a century. For more SCMP stories, please explore the SCMP app or visit the SCMP's Facebook and Twitter pages. Copyright © 2022 South China Morning Post Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved.

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