During his first trip abroad since being appointed premier in March, Chinese Premier Li Qiang urged German CEOs to lead “de-risking” decisions. His remark signifies China’s efforts to keep in check U.S.-led pressures on the Asian country by seeking greater cooperation with European countries in areas of science, technology, economy and trade.
According to China’s official Xinhua News Agency, Li told representatives from about a dozen Germany companies in Berlin on Monday that “enterprises (not governments) have the most direct and acute sense of risks and they know how to avoid and handle them. So, enterprises should be given back the leadership role in preventing risks.”
Germany is China’s biggest trading partner in Europe in terms of goods, and bilateral facility investments have risen in recent years. For instance, Alibaba Cloud, the digital technology and intelligence backbone of Chinese tech giant Alibaba, revealed it has opened its third data center in Germany.
The Frankfurt facility is aimed at offering a range of services to support enterprise customers across Europe including storage, networking, database, AI and machine learning amid increased digital transformation efforts.
China wants Europe to remain politically neutral and not favor the U.S. that stated desire to “de-risk” China, a term recently used by the Biden administration to reduce the country’s interdependence on the Chinese economy and prevent China from gaining access to advanced technology. This is why reports say China’s second-in-command’s visit to Germany should be seen as an attempt for Chinese officials to try to influence the final wording of Berlin’s updated China strategy, slated to be presented next month.
During his two-nation tour, Premier Li engages in consultative talks with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and the seventh China-Germany inter-governmental consultation on Tuesday. Li then heads on to France for a financing summit hosted by French President Emmanuel Macron.