Germany’s ambassador to Beijing was summoned to the Chinese Foreign Ministry on Sunday following comments by the head of German diplomacy, Annalena Baerbock, who described President Xi Jinping as a dictator.
Information about the German ambassador’s call to the Chinese diplomacy headquarters on Sunday was provided this Monday by a spokesperson for the German Foreign Ministry.
Today, China described Baerbock’s comment – made during an interview with North American television channel Fox News on September 14 – as a “political provocation”, according to German diplomats.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Mao Ning said today that Baerbock’s comments “are completely absurd and constitute a serious attack on China’s political dignity as well as an open political provocation.”
Referring to the war in Ukraine, the German minister also questioned the effect of the war in Ukraine on the behavior of the Chinese leader.
“If Putin were to win this war, what signal would that send to other dictators in the world, such as Xi, the Chinese president?” Baerbock wondered during the television interview, arguing that it is also essential for this reason is that Kiev wins the conflict against Moscow.
A spokesman for Social Democratic Chancellor Olaf Scholz, interviewed today in Berlin, believed that the way China is governed, through a one-party system, does not correspond to the “democratic ideas” of the German government, but declined to use the term to use ‘dictator’. ‘ to talk about Xi.
China is Germany’s largest trading partner, but Berlin has been hardening its tone toward Beijing for several months as the country seeks to reduce dependence on its economy and better protect its strategic interests in the face of an increasingly weak and aggressive China.
Source: DN
