BEIJING: Chinese envoys have begun a diplomatic flurry to set the stage for possible visits from leaders of France and Germany to Beijing later this year.

Former Chinese ambassador to Germany Xi Mingde was in Berlin last week to finalize plans for Chancellor Olaf Scholz's first state visit to Beijing in November, during which he would meet with President Xi Jinping, according to a source with knowledge of the matter. according.

French and Chinese diplomats have held several online and in-person meetings amid rumors that French President Emmanuel Macron will travel separately to meet with Xi in November.

After speaking with Macron's diplomatic adviser Emmanuel Bonne last week, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi met his French counterpart Catherine Colonna at the United Nations in New York on Monday.

In July, The South China Morning Post reported that Macron, Scholz and the presidents of Italy and Spain were also invited by China.

The trips will take place a week apart, according to Noah Barkin, managing editor of Rhodium Group, who first announced it on his Twitter page.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said on Wednesday: "At the moment, I do not have information to share about this." Wang had previously called the invitation "fake news".

Both Berlin and Paris declined to confirm the visits, claiming that international travel is usually announced a week in advance.

 If the visits go ahead, it will be the first visit by Western European leaders to China in three years because of the demands of the Covid. Macron and Scholz will likely be among the first world leaders to visit them after Xi is expected to be elected to a third five-year term as party leader at the Communist Party Congress in October.

However, China's relations with Europe have deteriorated significantly over the past three years.

including China's support for Russia's invasion of Ukraine, European sanctions against Chinese officials over the human rights situation in Xinjiang, an informal Chinese trade embargo on goods bound for Lithuania, and growing concerns about cross-strait relations with Taiwan Several issues have given rise to tension. According to analysts, European leaders will be pressured to avoid returning to pre-pandemic behavior, when state visits to China were often used as junk to close business deals.

"The symbols used in communication are important. President Macron announced, during his first visit to the Indo-Pacific region, that he would be visiting China annually, according to Antoine Bondaz, a research fellow at the Fondation por la Recherche Strategic, for many Surprised people. A French think tank. At the start of his second term, Bondaz said, "It will be important to send a more balanced message, particularly by highlighting our Indo-Pacific strategy."

Scholz is under even greater pressure now that the entire German strategy towards China is up for debate.

Their alliance is involved in a messy dispute over COSCO's proposal to acquire a 35% stake in the container port of Hamburg, the third largest in Europe. Robert Habeck, the economy minister and co-leader of the Greens, a junior coalition partner, said he was leaning toward opposing the purchase.

According to Scholz's Social Democratic Party member and Hamburg mayor Peter Tschancher, the dispute will harm the port as COSCO has already invested in rival operators in the port cities of Rotterdam, the Netherlands and Antwerp, Belgium. "Shipping companies should also be able to participate in terminals in Hamburg, if it makes business sense," he said. "To keep up with international competition, it must be possible."

The dispute jeopardized Germany's reputation as an open economy, according to Port of Hamburg Marketing CEO Axel Matern.

“Everyone is welcome to invest in our free social market economy. Such a strategy should be politically decided and implemented at the European level, he said, if there are political concerns that some players will be only European. The consortium should be allowed to invest in a limited amount. The controversy comes when the German Foreign Ministry, also led by the Green Party's Annalena Barbock, develops a New China strategy that is likely to depart from previous strategies.

According to several reports, export credit and investment guarantees from the government cannot be given to companies doing business in China. According to the United Nations, Volkswagen was denied such guarantees earlier this year for a project in Xinjiang where the Chinese government is suspected of allegedly committing crimes against humanity. China denies the allegations.

According to Pascal Ebb, a China researcher at the Peace Research Institute Frankfurt, German foreign policy is being "securitized". According to Ebb, "the port issue is the most visible part of the securitization process, where issues that were not previously considered core security issues are moved to that scope."

"Because you have these political differences and because there is, in my opinion, an exaggerated fear that Chinese infrastructure investments will undermine national security, you are cutting back on some relations, especially in the economic sphere, that used to be seen as separate from politics - what the Chinese like to call "win-win cooperation."

What are the requirements for advancement in Chinese politics?

Officials say Beijing will intensify sanctions against Taiwan's pro-independence forces

USC is being sued by the family of a Chinese student who died while being filmed