Chancellor Friedrich Merz is traveling to China for a belated inaugural visit. A lot is at stake as Germany is in search of global partners after the US has relinquished much of its longstanding role.
There is no shortage of gloomy assessments of the global situation at the moment.
"In the era of great powers, our freedom is no longer a given. It is under threat," said German Chancellor Friedrich Merz at the opening of the Munich Security Conference earlier in February.
Merz explicitly mentioned China.
"China has the ambition to shape global affairs, laying the foundations for this over many years with strategic patience. In the foreseeable future, Beijing could draw level with the US in terms of military might. China is systematically exploiting the dependencies of others, reinterpreting the international order on its own terms," he said.
The chancellor no longer sees the United States as a reliable partner.
In Munich, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi offered the very thing
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