Last month, German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier embarked on his first state visit to China since 2018, even as Chancellor Friedrich Merz toured Singapore, Tokyo, and Seoul on a mission to lessen Berlin’s reliance on Beijing. Steinmeier’s office emphasized he was traveling “as a European.”
Earlier in October, Merz and French President Emmanuel Macron secured backing from fellow EU leaders for new trade defense tools, including a measure that could, in extreme cases, shut a country out of Europe’s single market. Yet within weeks, Germany was effectively pressing Brussels for stronger instruments, courting alternatives to China, and dispatching its head of state to shake hands with President Xi Jinping. Eva Seiwert of the Mercator Institute for China Studies characterizes this approach as a China policy resting on “two pillars.”
Beijing perceives a different reality. Ding Chun, director of the Center for European Studies at Shanghai’s Fudan University, has cautioned that the European Union’s China policy risks being “strong at the top but weak at the bottom.” Chinese analysts segment the bloc into protectionists, anxious exporters, and governments seeking Chinese investment. By that assessment, Steinmeier’s visit signaled that German de-risking remains a bilateral stance, open to renegotiation in the Great Hall of the People.
