German Chancellor Angela Merkel embarks on Sunday on a trip to China and Japan aimed at bolstering trade ties and binding the Asian giants to global climate change goals.
Merkel will be in China until Wednesday for talks with President Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao before moving on for her first visit to Japan during which she will be greeted by Emperor Akihito and meet Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in a three-day stay.
The chancellor has the dual function of the leader of Europe's biggest economy and the president of the Group of Eight most industrialised nations, a role Japan will take over in 2008.
China's rapidly growing economy is set to overtake Germany as the world's third largest by the end of the year. It is increasingly moving into markets in which German companies once held the upper hand, such as office machinery, senior German officials said.
"Chinese industry is diversifying more and more into sectors where German industry is strong," an official told reporters. This has created a "discrepancy," the official said, because while China is now Germany's biggest trade partner in the Asia-Pacific region, just three percent of German exports go to the Chinese market.
Merkel will be accompanied by a delegation of 25 heads of German companies and industry representatives hoping to secure lucrative contracts to redress the balance. The German-designed high-speed Transrapid train, which is in operation in Shanghai but on hold in Europe since a fatal crash a year ago, could benefit from the visit although German officials could not confirm that it would be discussed.
Some German brands are gaining a dedicated following with increasingly fashion conscious Chinese consumers. Sportswear label Adidas, for example, is the top-selling German product in the country, according to a study by the BBDO consulting firm released to coincide with Merkel's trip.
Amid growing concern about the safety of Chinese-made goods, officials said German industry was working to help Chinese companies meet international standards. The global fight to reduce greenhouse gases will form a crucial element of the chancellor's trip, coming as it does just months before the international community is due to gather on the Indonesian island of Bali in December to negotiate a successor to the Kyoto Protocol that expires in 2012.
When Merkel hosted the G8 summit in the German resort of Heiligendamm in June, she invited the five leading emerging economies - China, Brazil, India, Mexico and South Africa - to join talks on climate change.
China's startling economic expansion has been accompanied by a marked rise in pollution, but it is wary of measures to cut greenhouse gases that might hamper growth.
Instead, China wants developed nations to help it improve energy efficiency by providing it with the necessary technology. On the thorny subject of human rights, German officials said "difficult subjects will not be put aside" when Merkel meets the Chinese president and premier.
A government official in Berlin said the freedom of journalists to work during next year's Beijing Olympics was one subject the chancellor was likely to raise with her hosts. In Japan, Merkel will give a speech in Kyoto to mark 10 years since the international accord on cutting greenhouse gases was agreed in the city. As an environment minister in Helmut Kohl's conservative government, she negotiated Germany's position in talks on the protocol.
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