HANGZHOU: German Chancellor Friedrich Merz arrived in the Chinese tech hub of Hangzhou on Thursday with a large group of entrepreneurs, hoping to land new contracts a day after meeting President Xi Jinping and announcing an Airbus deal.
Merz’s first official visit to China comes as Berlin and Beijing seek to build on decades-old economic ties to weather global uncertainty sparked by US President Donald Trump’s tariff blitz and erratic foreign policies.
China, the world’s number two economy, overtook the United States last year to become Germany’s biggest trade partner. At the same time, Berlin regards the Communist Party-run state as a systemic rival to the West.
The German leader is accompanied in China by a large delegation of business leaders, including executives of auto giants Volkswagen, BMW and Mercedes.
Merz visited a Mercedes plant in Beijing on Thursday morning, where he was shown a demonstration of self-driving vehicles.
