Germany’s president received Chinese Premier Li Qiang on his first trip abroad today, a test of relations between Berlin and Beijing, which have been marked by growing rivalry amid Sino-US tensions.

The German president set the tone during the contacts with the Chinese leader: cooperation between the two countries “remains important but has changed in recent years”, Frank-Walter Steinmeier underlined, according to the messages posted on Twitter by his representative Serstin Gamelin .

“China is a partner for Germany and Europe but also an increasingly competitor and adversary in the political arena,” he added.

The Chinese leader said China is ready to work with Germany to contribute “to global stability and prosperity,” according to China’s Xinhua news agency.

The bulk of government consultations with Chancellor Olaf Soltz’s team will take place tomorrow, Tuesday.

Li Chiang, who was appointed in March, will then pay an official visit to France, where he will attend a summit on a new global economic pact.

This dialogue with Berlin and Paris takes place at a time when relations between Beijing and Washington are particularly strained. US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken has been in China since Sunday in an attempt to warm up bilateral relations.

For Berlin, relations between China and the US are of “special importance for security and global cooperation”, Steinmeier underlined.

Speaking to his Chinese interlocutor, Steinmeier advocated “strengthening communication channels” between the two major powers.

– Enemy force –

China is Germany’s biggest trading partner and a vital market for its strong auto industry.

Germany, however, has hardened its tone for more than a year, mainly due to threats against Taiwan and accusations of persecution against the Uyghurs.

Xi Jinping’s non-condemnation of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine also widened the gap.

This is evidenced by the publication on June 14 by Berlin of a document characterizing China as an enemy power.

China, although a “partner” of Germany, acts “against our interests and values”, the German government specifically accuses in its “National Security Strategy”.

For Berlin, with Beijing’s action, “regional stability and international security are put under increasing pressure” and “human rights are not respected”.

This Security Strategy, which also targets Russia, has not been well received by the Chinese government.

“Considering and building international relations by seeing others as competitors, rivals or even enemies and turning normal cooperation into a matter of security or politics, this will push our world into a whirlwind of division and confrontation,” the spokesman said. Chinese Foreign Ministry Wang Wenbin.

The difficulties faced by the Chinese economy, which is struggling to overcome the post-Covid period, justify Li Chiang’s visit to Germany.

For its part, Germany is seeking to reduce its commercial dependence on Beijing. Germany “has no interest in hindering China’s economic development,” Olaf Scholz told German industrialists today. “And at the same time, we are looking carefully to avoid dangerous financial dependencies in the future.”

– New road –

Li Chiang is “Xi’s economic czar and is responsible for normalizing the troubled Chinese economy,” Ian Johnson, a China expert at the US think tank Council on Foreign Policy, told AFP.

“It makes sense therefore that it should go to China’s main trading partner in Europe,” he observes. “For China, Germany is the most important player in Europe and, as relations with the US deteriorate, Beijing is keen to show that it has a constructive relationship with the biggest player in Europe,” confirms Thorsten Boehner of Global Public Policy Institute (GPPI).

“The question is,” according to Brenner, whether the Germans “continue to play the game of pretending there is a broad agreement with Beijing” or whether they “choose a new path by speaking frankly and limiting the final statement to areas where there is fertile ground for cooperation”.