Olaf Scholz’s Trip to China

On November 4, Germany’s Chancellor Olaf Scholz visited China, marking the first time that a G7 country’s leader met with President Xi Jinping since the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic and since Xi secured a third term in power. It was also their first in-person meeting since Scholz took over the Chancellery from long-time leader Angela Merkel in 2021 and since the conclusion of the 20th Party Congress of the Chinese Communist Party and Xi’s further consolidation of power. To assess the outcomes of Chancellor Scholz’s trip and Germany’s policy toward China, host Bonnie Glaser speaks with Noah Barkin, a visiting senior fellow at the German Marshall Fund and Managing Editor at the Rhodium Group’s China Practice. Barkin writes about European policy toward China in his monthly Watching China in Europe newsletter.

Om Podcasten

China’s rise has captivated and vexed the international community. From defense, technology, and the environment, to trade, academia, and human rights, much of what Beijing does now reverberates across the map. China Global is a new podcast from the German Marshall Fund that decodes Beijing’s global ambitions as they unfold. Every other week, host Bonnie Glaser will be joined by a different international expert for an illuminating discussion on a different aspect of China’s foreign policy, the worldview that drives its actions, the tactics it’s using to achieve its goals—and what that means for the rest of the world.