Germany needs to update its one-year-old China strategy to take a more European approach to relations, German Vice Chancellor Robert Habeck said after arriving in Beijing on Friday.
"The strategy starts from the status quo, but not from the horizon. So what will be our relationship with China in, let's say, 30 years?" Habeck said at a reception at the German embassy in Beijing.
Habeck, a Green politician who is also Economy Minister in the coalition government in Berlin, had arrived in China after a short trip to South Korea.
"I am sure that China has a strategy where they want to go, and I guess also the US," he said.
The German government adopted a formal China strategy document for the first time last year.
The core of the strategy calls for reducing Germany's economic dependency on China in order to avoid a rude awakening like the one that followed the Russian attack on Ukraine, when Germany was thrown into an energy crisis after supplies of Russian gas were cut off.
The strategy was controversial within Germany's three-party coalition government, but was backed most enthusiastically by Habeck and Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock, both Greens.
Habeck on Friday suggested that there needs to be more coordination with the rest of the European Union. At a meeting with ambassadors from EU countries in Beijing, Habeck said that approaches would have to be combined in a changed world.
"This is a German government's China strategy. What is missing is the European approach," he said.
He also talked about the sensitive issue of subsidies for Chinese firms. State support would result in goods being sold below market value in Germany and Europe, he said.
These would "undermine or even destroy" the markets there, he said.
He also commented on China's ties to Russia during the Ukraine war, arguing that China is paying an economic price for its good relations with Russia as Western countries seek to reduce their dependence on Chinese goods.
Buying cheap Russian raw materials was the "wrong" way to go, he said.
Habeck will not meet Chinese Premier Li Qiang on Saturday during his visit to Beijing as initially planned.
Habeck said he is still scheduled to meet "a whole series of cabinet colleagues" on Saturday before departing the Chinese capital for Shanghai.
The appointment with Li was "not feasible in the morning before departure," according to Habeck's ministry.
