Keystone-SDA
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz will hold a bilateral meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping on the sidelines of the G20 summit in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. He will notably discuss the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East.
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November 15, 2024 – 11:33 am
(Keystone-ATS) The meeting is scheduled for Tuesday, a German government source said on Friday. It will focus on the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East as well as Sino-German relations, particularly in the commercial field.
China, which has never condemned the Kremlin for the invasion of Ukraine and whose economic and military relations with Russia are viewed with suspicion by the West, is seeking to appear as a mediator in the Ukrainian conflict.
In the war in Gaza between Israel and the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas, Beijing wants to present itself as a more neutral actor than the United States.
Strong links
Germany maintains strong ties with China, long its largest trading partner, even if Berlin has toughened its tone recently, seeking a delicate balance between continuing economic cooperation and protecting its strategic and security interests.
Olaf Scholz has visited China twice since the start of his mandate in 2021.
Europe’s largest economy is also worried about the specter of a trade war between the EU and China, after Brussels increased European customs duties on Chinese electric vehicles, which it considers illegally subsidized by Beijing.
The G20, which meets for a summit Monday and Tuesday in Rio, brings together the largest economies on the planet, including the United States, China and France, as well as the European Union and the African Union, for exchanges increasingly marked by geopolitical tensions.
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