Reporting ! The German ambassador to Beijing has been summoned to the Chinese Foreign Ministry, Berlin announced on Monday. This clarification follows comments made on September 14 on the American channel Fox News by Annalena Baerbock, the head of German diplomacy, who described President Xi Jinping as a “dictator”.
Referring to the war in Ukraine, the head of diplomacy, from the Green party, more precisely declared: “If Putin were to win this war, what sign would that send to other dictators in the world, like Xi, like the president Chinese? This is why Ukraine must win this war.”
China on Monday described Annalena Baerbock’s statements as “open political provocation”. “These comments are extremely absurd and constitute a serious attack on China’s political dignity,” said Mao Ning, spokesperson for the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, during her daily press conference on Monday.
Criticism reiterated but in soft version
A spokesperson for German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, interviewed Monday in Berlin, judged that the way China is governed, via a “single party” system, did not correspond “to [nos] democratic ideas. However, he did not use the term “dictator” used by the minister.
China is Germany’s largest trading partner, but for several months the latter has been toughening its tone towards the Chinese regime while seeking to reduce the dependence of its economy and better protect its strategic interests in the face of a “China”. more and more offensive.