Steinmeier in Beijing: 'With size and power comes great responsibility'
In a speech at Peking University, Germany's president called for fair trade and urged China to press Russia to end its war against Ukraine.
Archive image · Photo: Jnwnklr / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0 (cropped and resized)
German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier urged China during his state visit to work with others to strengthen the rules-based international order. He spoke at Peking University, which awarded him an honorary professorship. "There is a threat of lawlessness. I see a great danger in that for all of us," Steinmeier said, according to dpa.
He cited difficult market access for Western companies in China and state-subsidised Chinese exports to Europe. "We are not worried that China is rising. But we are watching how China is rising," he said. Europe did not want to decouple from China, but wanted competition only on the basis of fair and uniform rules.
On the war in Ukraine, Steinmeier noted that China is a permanent member of the UN Security Council with close ties to Russia: "So let us work together to get Russia to stop its attacks." He named climate protection and the handling of artificial intelligence as shared challenges.