In his meeting with Olaf Scholz at the G20 summit, President Xi Jinping said Germany must play a significant role in reducing tensions over EU tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles.
Our correspondent Peter Oliver is in Berlin.
Our correspondent Peter Oliver is in Berlin.
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00The Chancellor went into this meeting with President Xi with a couple of key points he wanted to raise,
00:05particularly when it comes to China's export of what are called dual-use technologies to Russia
00:11that could be used in the conflict in Ukraine, particularly this is drones, we're talking about
00:17drones that could be sold for one reason but end up with a use on the battlefield. Germany also
00:22wanting to push China when it comes to North Korean troops and the role that potentially they
00:28could play in the conflict in Ukraine. Olaf Scholz calling on a chance on President Xi to
00:34exert some of his influence there. Now one of the reasons that Scholz can potentially play this role
00:40in trying to get de-escalation is this is probably the last time he's going to be at a G20, probably
00:45the last time he'll meet with President Xi in these jobs that they have anyway. He's facing a
00:50vote of no confidence just behind me in the Bundestag mid next month. When he loses that,
00:55if he loses that, really it's when he loses that there's going to be elections at the end
00:59of February that he looks increasingly unlikely to certainly take a role of Chancellor after those.
01:06What we did hear from him as well saying was that there would be, he wanted a level playing field
01:10when it came to economic cooperation. Now Germany as part of the EU and China are currently at an
01:16impasse when it comes to Chinese electric vehicles coming into the European Union.
01:20The EU wants to put quite swinging tariffs upon them and they're still looking for a solution
01:25that will involve not having the type of tariffs that are being put forward but those talks are
01:31still ongoing. From the Chinese side what we've heard in the printout that's the readout that's
01:35come from this is we heard President Xi saying that the current times that we have are unseen
01:41in a century and that they are accelerating global conflicts and that the world stands
01:46at a crossroads. Talking about the relationship between China and Germany he said there was a lot
01:51that had been positive, there was certainly a lot that was positive now and going forward
01:55particularly what they'd achieved when it comes to green technology, when it comes to cross-border
01:58data flow, when it comes to sustainable transportation, that's your electric vehicles
02:03right there, and agricultural cooperation as well. Perhaps with a hint towards Olav Schultz
02:09going in there asking China to exert influence, President Xi also saying that China and Germany
02:14were the second and third largest economies in the world, that they were both major powers and
02:19that they both had significant influence globally. As I said probably the last time these two will
02:25meet in their current roles as Chancellor Schultz facing a tricky election next year.