On his trip to Asia, Chancellor Olaf (SPD) wants to discuss, among other things, the Russian war of aggression and the expansion of economic relations.
Berlin/Hanoi – Olaf Scholz (SPD) has started its four-day trip to Asia. On Saturday (November 12) he embarked on the longest business trip of his term. In the next four days, he first wants to travel to Southeast Asia in order to then take part in the G20 summit of the most important economic powers on the Indonesian island of Bali.
On Sunday (November 13), Scholz and his twelve-strong business delegation will meet Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh and the Secretary General of the Communist Party, Nguyen Phu Trong, in the Vietnamese capital of Hanoi. It will be about the Ukraine warbut also about expanding economic relations.
Olaf Scholz at the G20 summit: talks in Singapore together with Robert Habeck
Vietnam has close ties with both China and Russia. However, relations between China and Vietnam are strained by a territorial conflict in the South China Sea over two island groups. Russia, in turn, is Vietnam’s most important arms supplier. They also cooperate in developing gas and oil fields off the Vietnamese coast, and there are more than 150 investment projects in Vietnam in which Russian companies are involved. Like China, Vietnam did not condemn Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine in the UN General Assembly votes.
Together with Minister of Economy Robert Habeck (Green) the Chancellor will then attend an economic conference in Singapore on Monday (November 14). The focus here should be on talks about reducing economic dependency on China and expanding partnerships with other Asian countries.
Scholz travels to the G20 summit in Bali: Vladimir Putin will not attend
At the G20 summit, which marks the end of the trip to Asia, Scholz will meet with the US President, among others Joe Biden and the Chinese head of state Xi Jinping on the Ukraine war, the energy and food crisis and the state of the global economy. The Russian President Wladimir Putin Has canceled his participation and announced Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov instead.
Scholz is traveling to Asia for the third time in eleven months. In contrast to his predecessors, the chancellor made a conscious decision not to rule autocratically China to be the first Asian country to visit, but the democratic G7 partner Japan. Only six months later did he visit Beijing. (tt/dpa)
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