German Chancellor Friedrich Merz is arriving in Beijing early on Wednesday to meet his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping, marking his first visit to China since taking office in 2025. Before taking off, Merz stressed the need for fair trade, but also said that China “has risen to the ranks of the great powers, our China policy must take this into account” and that “Beijing’s voice is also heard in Moscow.”
China is Germany’s top trading partner. Yet diplomats in Berlin hope Merz will strike a firmer tone, in line with the government’s China strategy, which aims to reduce economic dependence on the world’s second-largest economy.
“Chancellor Merz must not sugarcoat anything in Beijing”, Boris Mijatovic, member of the Bundestag’s committee on foreign affairs, told Euractiv.
Germany’s auto industry remains heavily dependent on the Chinese market, while Beijing has expanded investment in sensitive sectors, including telecommunications infrastructure, such as 5G networks, in the country through the Chinese state-controlled company Huawei.
Last October, German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul had to cancel a planned visit after no senior Chinese official agreed to meet him, seemingly over critical comments on Taiwan and Beijing’s support for Russia’s war against Ukraine.
Merz’s visit comes just a day after the fourth anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Western leaders have long urged China to use its leverage over Russian President Vladimir Putin to end the war, to little avail.
“That ongoing war in Europe would not be possible without China,” said Luke de Pulford, executive director of the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China, an international cross-party group of parliamentarians.
China, he argues, supports Russia’s war effort in two critical ways: components for its war efforts and economic support.
A large share of components used in Russia’s military-industrial complex now originates in China, either routed through sanctions-evasion schemes or transferred in direct violation of Western restrictions.
China’s transatlantic play
Beijing is also seeking to weaken the transatlantic alliance, de Pulford said, by exploiting divisions among Western partners while their resources are absorbed by the war in Ukraine.
“The Chinese leadership has still not condemned Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine,” Mijatovic added, arguing that economic cooperation and political support continue to contribute to Russia’s continuation of this war.
The chancellor, Mijatovic, said “has a duty, on behalf of many European states, to emphasise the binding nature of international law.”
Still, appeals to Xi Jinping are likely futile, de Pulford said: “If he wanted to end the war in Ukraine, he could do so very quickly,” adding that recent visits by Western leaders have yielded little results.
Canada’s Prime Minister Mark Carney faced pressure over tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles, while his British counterpart Keir Starmer had to approve plans for a vast new Chinese embassy complex in London.
“The worst thing Merz could do would be to trade concessions for short-term economic gains,” de Pulford warned. “They always come with strings attached.”