Habeck says Germany's China strategy needs European update

Germany needs to update its one-year-old China strategy to take a more European approach to relations, German Vice Chancellor Robert Habeck said after arriving in Beijing on Friday.

"The strategy starts from the status quo, but not from the horizon. So what will be our relationship with China in, let's say, 30 years?" Habeck said at a reception at the German embassy in Beijing. "I'm saying this because I am sure that China has a strategy where they want to go, and I guess also the US."

The German government adopted a formal China strategy document for the first time last year.

The core of the strategy calls for reducing Germany's economic dependency on China in order to avoid a rude awakening like the one that followed the Russian attack on Ukraine, when Germany was thrown into an energy crisis after supplies of Russian gas were cut off.

The strategy was controversial within Germany's three-party coalition government, but was backed most enthusiastically by Habeck and Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock, both Greens.

Habeck on Friday suggested that there needs to be more coordination with the rest of the European Union. At a meeting with ambassadors from EU countries in Beijing, Habeck said that approaches would have to be combined in a changed world.

"This is a German government's China strategy. What is missing is the European approach," he said.