"We have very specific concerns regarding our cooperation, which we want to improve and make fair," Merz said during a meeting with Li on Wednesday. Notably, he avoided referring to China as a "systemic rival," a term used by predecessor Olaf Scholz that served to irritate Beijing. Merz, who traveled to China with 30 German business leaders, also met leading Chinese and German business figures in Hangzhou, China's tech hub.
China's Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning highlighted the German business delegation as an example of "practical cooperation" that said "a lot about Germany's expectation of and confidence in deepening practical China-Germany cooperation."
