Besides his battered leather briefcase, the main baggage accompanying German chancellor Olaf Scholz to Beijing on Friday is metaphorical. Weighed down by others’ expectations, Scholz’s first trip to China as chancellor is also the first by any foreign leader since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic three years ago.
Hosting the day trippers from Berlin is Xi Jinping, China’s most powerful leader since Mao Zedong after securing a historic third term as president. Scholz knows his visit is about more than Germany: it will help set the tone – and direction – of future EU relations with an increasingly autocratic Beijing.
“It’s clear that when China changes, we have to change our approach to China,” wrote Scholz in Wednesday’s Frankfurter Allgemeine daily.
Others in Germany are more stark in their tone. Last month domestic and foreign intelligence chiefs warned a Bundestag hearing that German business, society, academia and politics have all become “painfully dependent” on an “autocratic China” that “suddenly no longer seems well-disposed”.
Then last week Berlin saw considerable blowback over the planned sale to China’s Cosco of a quarter share of a terminal management company in Hamburg harbour.
Some see Germany repeating with China the errors of its failed Russian policy, when it increased dependency on Russian energy while simultaneously selling Moscow critical gas storage infrastructure.
The Cosco decision was hugely controversial in Germany too: pushed through by Scholz against opposition from several cabinet members who are wary of China’s long-term strategic aims in Europe. Green Party foreign minister Annalena Baerbock went so far as to remind the chancellor in public that their year-old coalition agreement frames China as a partner, competitor “and increasingly a systemic rival”.
Her officials are engaged in a lively battle over a new China strategy paper with more pragmatic Scholz chancellery officials. But even the latter camp, chastened by criticism over the Cosco deal, have framed Friday’s day trip to Beijing as an “exploratory visit”.
“There’ll be no ‘more of the same’ on China,” insisted one senior Berlin official.
Though a small business delegation accompanies the chancellor, Scholz officials insist the trip is as much about sounding out China and pressing Xi to use his influence to end Russia’s war on Ukraine.
One month shy of a year in office, it’s not just China where the Scholz administration is feeling heat from its European neighbours. In September, Berlin caught other capitals off guard by announcing a €200 billion cost-of-living stimulus package, including a national gas cap, just as it pushed back against an EU gas cap proposal.
Berlin officials insist the German plan came together too quickly to inform its neighbours and was never intended to wrong-foot them. They insist it will not distort the single market, as critics fear, because it mixes new borrowing with old, repurposed pandemic funds.
Though Germany eventually dropped its opposition to the idea of an EU gas price cap, it agreed its national gas cap on Wednesday. Resentment lingers that Berlin’s uncoordinated – some say arrogant – solo run could make life, and politics, difficult for less prosperous EU neighbours.
A third major source of friction is assistance to Ukraine, where Germany’s promise of robust support for Kyiv after February’s Russian invasion gave way to annoyance in some quarters that Berlin was delivering too little, too late. Scholz officials push back energetically here. After an admittedly slow start with poor communication, Germany insists it has made up ground with deliveries that include anti-aircraft missile systems and anti-aircraft self-propelled units.
In addition, Berlin has delivered an IRIS-T air defence system, with three more to follow as soon as they are built.
Measured in absolute terms, the “Ukraine Support Tracker” database places Germany in fourth place when it comes to military aid – equipment and financial – for Ukraine. While the US and UK lead with €26.9 billion and €3.8 billion respectively, Poland is third on €1.8 billion followed by Germany on €1.2 billion.
As Berlin officials see it many of their critics – some of whom are delivering less to Ukraine – fail to appreciate how major a shift it was for Germany to deliver arms to a war zone, shattering a post-war taboo.
Even as its arms deliveries grow, they say, geography and history mean Germany will never be an outlier in the current conflict. That reflects public opinion: a recent poll showed 52 per cent German support further weapons deliveries in full or in part, while 40 per cent are wary or opposed.
Just how far and how fast Berlin feels it can go on Ukraine will always make it unpopular with some, said one senior official, “but we are used to that”.
Echoing Merkel-era officials in the euro crisis bailout debate, some Scholz officials bridle at what they see as demands that Germany lead more – but only as others see fit. “Who defines the benchmark – and direction – of such leadership?” asks one Berlin official.
Rather than echo the US “decoupling” strategy on China, Scholz wants to go another way. In Beijing, and on his return, he will instead push Germany and its European neighbours to embrace the idea of “smart diversification” in ties with China.