Pay attention to Beijing’s April guests

HAN WOO-DUK
The author is a senior reporter of the China Lab.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz visited China on April 14, but the one person that should have accompanied him was missing — Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock. In the meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping and Premier Li Qiang, the foreign minister was not in attendance. What happened?

“If Putin were to win this war, what sign would that be for other dictators in the world, like Xi, the Chinese president?” said Baerbock in an interview with American television Fox in September 2023. Representing the Green Party in the coalition, she described Xi as a dictator. China fumed and called the statement an open political provocation. This is why the foreign minister was not included in the delegation.

Chancellor Scholz’s reason to visit China while excluding the foreign minister can be found from the principle of “balance.” In the China Strategy report adopted last year, Germany branded China as a “partner, competitor and system rival.” China holds a multifaceted position to Germany as a partner of economic cooperation, a competitor for future industries and a geopolitical enemy. Scholz thinks that Germany should check on China as a rival, but also cooperate with it as a partner.

In the end, it’s all about the economy. China has been Germany’s largest trading partner since 2016. Most major German companies such as Volkswagen and BASF have factories in China. But problems arose after Germany’s exports to China fell 4.2 percent last year. In the first quarter of this year, the exports fell by a whopping 16.6 percent. Without economic cooperation with China, Chancellor Scholtz decided that the current economic difficulties could not be overcome. He brought along many CEOs for his trip, including those from BMW, BASF and Siemens.

Indonesian President-Elect Prabowo Subianto also visited China earlier this month. He chose China for his first overseas trip since his election victory. The president-elect repeatedly stressed that he would prioritize economic cooperation with China during his term. Amid the U.S.-China rivalry for hegemony, countries around the world are busy working for their own interests. Even the United States sent Secretary of Treasury Janet Yellen and Secretary of State Tony Blinken to Beijing to deliver messages and examine the situation there. All this happened in April.

The Korea-China relationship is still in the middle of winter. As diplomatic relations are not smooth, economic exchanges are also not vibrant. Industrial connections between the two countries are increasingly narrowing. An executive of a major conglomerate in Korea compared the bilateral relationship to “a ship drifting with its engine off.” It will soon be May, when a Korea-China-Japan summit is scheduled for the end of the month. Korean industries are closely watching whether the meeting will revive that engine.