Chinese Premier Li Keqiang will meet German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Sunday as the two export powerhouses seek to further strengthen economic ties amid brewing trade spats between Beijing and the EU. Germany is the only stop among the EU's 27 member states for the new Chinese premier during his maiden foreign tour, in a sign that Beijing wants to continue their special relationship, analysts say.
Germany is by far China's biggest European trading partner, while German motor vehicles and auto parts, machinery and electrical goods find a vast export market in the world's second-largest economy. Li's two-day programme begins with a visit to the town of Potsdam, near Berlin, and the Cecilienhof palace where Soviet, US and British leaders met in 1945 to help shape post-war Europe and Asia. Merkel, who on a trip to Beijing in August visited the Forbidden City accompanied by Li's predecessor Wen Jiabao, later hosts Li for talks at the chancellery after a military honours greeting.
"From the German side, it's all about trade. Germany sees China essentially as a large export market on which it's increasingly dependent," Germany expert Hans Kundnani, of the European Council on Foreign Relations, told AFP. Merkel made two trips to Beijing within just seven months last year.
She was accompanied on the second visit by top executives of blue-chip companies including Airbus, which signed a $3.5-billion deal with China for 50 jets. But for China, Germany is not only economically important in providing much-need technology but also plays a strategic part in helping to combat Beijing's fear of the US and Europe teaming up against it, Kundnani said.
"The Chinese see Germany as a way to get the Europe they want, in other words a Europe that stays out of the strategic rivalry between China and the US as the US pivots to China, and essentially remains neutral," the London-based expert added. Berlin has emerged as the go-to capital from Europe's three-year economic crisis.
Trade between Germany and China reached around 144 billion euros ($185.7 billion) in 2012, according to official German data. Volkswagen, Europe's biggest carmaker, announced in March that it planned to open seven more factories in China, VW's single biggest market where last year it delivered 2.81 million vehicles.
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