Steinmeier in China: A German state visit balancing partnership, risk, and rising tensions

Frank-Walter Steinmeier has not been to China in eight years, and the country he is returning to, along with Europe's relationship to it, has changed considerably. The German president is setting out on a five-day state visit that will take him through several parts of the country before ending in Beijing, where he will meet the Chinese leadership. His office says the trip will center on Germany's diverse and complex relations with China and the challenges that come with them.

The timing is unusual. His visit coincides with the plenary session of the Chinese Communist Party's Central Committee, a major annual event that foreign dignitaries usually avoid when scheduling trips. The itinerary includes sites of cultural exchange and a stop at a Volkswagen plant in Hefei.

The car industry captures the dilemma facing German policy. China is among the most important markets for German automotive and machinery makers and for the chemical industry. At the same time, state-supported overcapacity in China is squeezing European manufacturers. Germany and Europe also depend on China for raw materials and technologies, which is pushing them to look for alternative partners.

Steinmeier himself once championed "change through trade," the idea that global commerce could nudge other countries toward democracy. Few people in Germany still hold that view. He is now expected to carry a tougher European line to Beijing. European leaders recently agreed to scale back imports of plug-in hybrid vehicles from China. Michael Laha, a China expert at the German Council on Foreign Relations in Berlin, called that a concrete step but said it can only be the beginning.

Berlin is also sending a second senior figure to Asia at the same time. Chancellor Friedrich Merz is traveling to Japan, Singapore and South Korea with business representatives, focusing on competitiveness, technological upheaval, defense cooperation and critical raw materials. He is visiting companies and attending regional economic conferences in Tokyo and Seoul. Laha reads the two trips as one message: the chancellor is deliberately strengthening Germany's Indo-Pacific partnerships, while the president seeks dialogue with Beijing. Together, he says, they tell China that Germany remains committed to the partnership while taking steps to reduce risk. He described it as a difficult balancing act that also lets China save face.

Where Merz brings a large economic delegation, Steinmeier travels with people from culture, politics and academia. Mikko Huotari, director of the China Institute MERICS, is expected to be among them, even though Beijing has sanctioned the institute. Laha said his presence signals that Germany does not accept those sanctions. The sanctions trace back to 2021, when the EU penalized several Chinese party and regional officials and an organization over serious human rights violations and the repression of the Uyghur minority. It was the first such EU action against China since the Tiananmen Square massacre in 1989. Beijing answered with entry bans and other sanctions on European politicians, scholars and institutions, MERICS among them.

Laha does not expect human rights to feature prominently. Steinmeier is regarded as a pragmatist on China. As foreign minister he distanced himself from his predecessor Joschka Fischer, a China critic, and criticized Chancellor Angela Merkel for hosting the Dalai Lama.

On Ukraine, he is likely to be more direct. Laha says Beijing is clearly on Moscow's side, yet officials in Berlin believe China could do more to bring Russia to serious negotiations. Steinmeier may make that point in his Thursday speech at Peking University. His office says Germany has long viewed China's rise with respect and goodwill, but that attention now falls less on the rise itself than on how China uses its growing power. Laha suggests that if the president notes Russia used its power to attack a sovereign state, he could be alluding to Taiwan, an appeal for Beijing to take more responsibility for regional and international order.

The visit ends in Beijing with talks with President Xi Jinping, whom Steinmeier has known for nearly two decades, Premier Li Qiang, and Zhao Leji, chairman of the National People's Congress. The trip caps the Asia focus of his second term, during which he has sought closer regional ties and greater diversification. What remains to be seen is how China, Germany's most important and most challenging partner, answers.