IIt is still late at night in Berlin when the chancellor plane lands in Beijing in the sunshine. The first person the pilot of the Federal Air Force sees on the ground in Beijing is an air traffic controller in a white full-body plastic suit with protective goggles and a Covid mask. As a Chinese People’s Liberation Army honor guard marches towards the front of the plane, two buses race in front of the rear gangway. There are mobile Covid test stations where the members of the delegation have to be tested. Only Chancellor Olaf Scholz and his entourage are allowed to have the PCR test carried out by German doctors on the flight, while Chinese in hazmat suits look on. They are called “Dabai” in China, the great whites.
The “Dabai” are the constant companions of the shortest trip by a Federal Chancellor to China in German history. It is a visit to a closed country that is still doggedly sticking to its zero-Covid strategy and is also increasingly isolating itself from the West politically and economically. The trip takes just over thirty hours in total, with a stopover in Beijing of less than twelve hours.
Because of the strict Corona regulations, the German crew flies straight on to South Korea with the Airbus A340 so that the pilots do not have to go into the prescribed quarantine after landing. They also take one or the other mobile phone with them on board, which should not end up in Chinese espionage fields. On Friday evening, the chancellor and his delegation will be picked up again from Seoul.
Scholz is under pressure
As short as the stay in China is, the pressure on Scholz is just as heavy. The trip is viewed with skepticism in its own coalition, among its European partners and in Washington. Scholz is the first Western leader to visit Beijing after Xi Jinping’s show of force at the Communist Party conference. Scholz emphasizes that there was close coordination with the allies beforehand, especially with France and America. Above all, the point in time was criticized, not the conversation with Xi Jinping. All sides agree that with the concentration of power in Xi’s hands, it is important to maintain a direct channel with him.
No one knows if the followers he surrounds himself with are sending him unwelcome messages. At the beginning of the conversation with Scholz on Friday, Xi insisted on “mutual respect and the search for common ground despite differences”. As “powers of influence,” China and Germany should work together “in times of change and chaos.”
Scholz made his first trip to China as Chancellor in a highly tense world political situation, as he himself emphasized on Friday. To date, China has not condemned Russia’s war of aggression in Ukraine. The Americans are increasingly on a confrontational course with Beijing, which in turn has increased military pressure on Taiwan.
Berlin currently sees the greatest imminent danger in Moscow’s nuclear threat. Nobody can rule out further escalation in Ukraine, and Scholz now wants to influence Xi on this. He hopes that he will exert his influence on Putin. A constant reminder of Putin’s war is the detour that the government plane has to take on the flight from Berlin to Beijing: Russian airspace is closed to Germans.
Criticism of taking along the business delegation
At the beginning of his meeting with Xi, Scholz emphasized the dangers of the Russian war against Ukraine. At the same time, he recalls his previous meetings with Xi as Hamburg mayor and finance minister, and the good contacts. In his opening speech at the meeting with Xi, which the press is not allowed to attend, Scholz expresses his hope of “further developing economic relations”.