Xi and Steinmeier meet in Beijing as China and Germany pledge a 'new chapter' in ties
Chinese President Xi Jinping and German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier held talks in Beijing on Friday, with Xi hailing a new chapter in relations and Steinmeier urging China to help preserve the international order.
Chinese President Xi Jinping held talks with German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier in Beijing on Friday, the centrepiece of a five-day state visit that runs until Saturday and comes at a moment of strain in relations between China and Europe over trade, industrial policy and the rules of the international system.
Xi welcomed Steinmeier with a ceremony at the Great Hall of the People before the two leaders sat down for talks. According to Chinese state media, Xi told his guest that relations between Beijing and Berlin stood at the start of a new chapter, and that it was incumbent on the two countries to take the lead in forging a new model of cooperation based on equality, mutual benefit and strategic stability.
Xi also used the meeting to set out what Beijing wants from Berlin and from Europe more broadly. He said China hoped Germany would adhere to what he called a rational, pragmatic and friendly China policy, and that the European Union would work with China in the same direction. China has always viewed the EU as a partner, Xi said, and has developed ties with the bloc in a spirit of sincerity and goodwill, with cooperation outweighing competition and consensus outweighing differences.
Steinmeier, in his opening remarks, stressed a different but complementary theme: the need for China to play its part in preserving the international order. The world needed China to help uphold a rules-based system grounded in the United Nations Charter, he told Xi, while Xi in turn called on both countries to help forge a more equitable and stable system of global governance.
The meeting followed a blunt speech Steinmeier gave at Peking University on Thursday, in which he warned that China's pursuit of economic self-sufficiency must not leave other countries dependent on Chinese suppliers or exposed to unequal market access. Europe was determined to keep its industrial base, he said, but added that he was confident Brussels and Beijing could find solutions through dialogue.
"We do not want a new bloc confrontation," Steinmeier said in that address. "That would not only be dangerous for international security, but would also be an economic loss for everyone." The remark captured the balancing act at the heart of the visit: pressing Beijing on trade imbalances while keeping the door open to cooperation.
Steinmeier is paying the state visit at Xi's invitation, travelling from Tuesday to Saturday, and the talks in Beijing were the diplomatic high point of the trip. Germany remains one of China's most important European partners, with deep commercial ties in cars, machinery and chemicals, but those ties have been tested by disputes over market access, subsidies and export controls.
The wider European dimension was never far from the room. Xi's appeal for the EU to move in the same direction as Germany reflects Beijing's hope that Berlin can help shape a friendlier European approach, while Steinmeier's emphasis on the international order reflects European concern that the system built around the UN Charter is under pressure from multiple directions at once.
No new trade agreement was announced from Friday's meeting, and the two sides' public statements kept to broad principles rather than concrete commitments. The value of the encounter, diplomats will judge, lies less in any single document than in whether the dialogue it reopened produces practical movement on trade frictions in the months ahead.
With the visit continuing into Saturday, further meetings and statements may still follow. For now, both presidents have publicly committed to the same broad goal — a stable, cooperative relationship — while leaving the harder questions of trade balance and global order for the negotiations that must follow.
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