German Chancellor Friedrich Merz arrived in China, seeking to rebalance the two countries’ trade relationship.
Berlin was for years the driving force for closer EU relations with Beijing — as China took off economically, it was a huge market for Germany’s industrial exports. But that drive “appears to be a historic policy miscalculation,” Politico reported, comparable to Germany’s reliance on Russian energy, as China’s soaring industrial output floods markets and its dominance of raw-materials supply chains gives Beijing huge power over Germany’s factories.
Merz is under pressure from German industry leaders to take a harder line, but he is in a tough spot: US unpredictability means relying on Washington is unwise, leaving him little leverage over Chinese leader Xi Jinping.
