HANGZHOU: German Chancellor Friedrich Merz ended his two-day visit to China on Thursday in the tech hub of Hangzhou, identifying &quot;challenges that we must overcome together&quot; after meeting President Xi Jinping and announcing an Airbus deal. Merz&#39;s first official visit to China came as Berlin and Beijing seek to build on decades-old economic ties to weather global uncertainty sparked by US President Donald Trump&#39;s&nbsp;<a href="https://www.pakistantv.com/article/trump-announces-hike-in-us-global-tariff-rate-from-10-to-15" target="_blank" style="color:#0073e6;" rel="noopener noreferrer">tariff blitz</a>&nbsp;and erratic foreign policies. China, the world&#39;s number two economy, overtook the United States last year to become Germany&#39;s biggest trade partner. At the same time, Berlin regards the Asian country as a systemic rival to the West. The German leader was accompanied in China by a large delegation of business leaders, including executives of auto giants Volkswagen, BMW and Mercedes. Merz visited a Mercedes plant in Beijing on Thursday morning, where he was shown a demonstration of self-driving vehicles. He then travelled to Hangzhou, where he visited the sites of Germany&#39;s Siemens Energy and Chinese&nbsp;<a href="https://www.pakistantv.com/article/japan-introduces-ai-robot-monk-to-the-public" target="_blank" style="color:#0073e6;" rel="noopener noreferrer">humanoid robot</a>-maker Unitree. The eastern city is home to several other major Chinese tech companies like AI unicorn&nbsp;<a href="https://www.pakistantv.com/article/inside-chinas-buzzing-ai-scene-year-after-deepseek-shock" target="_blank" style="color:#0073e6;" rel="noopener noreferrer">DeepSeek</a>&nbsp;and e-commerce giant Alibaba. European business leaders, who broadly complain China is flooding the EU market with cheap goods, have urged Merz to keep a cavernous trade imbalance at the top of his agenda. Germany&#39;s trade deficit with China hit a record $105 billion last year. &quot;We have good cooperation in China. However, there are also some challenges that we must overcome together,&quot; Merz said Thursday, singling out &quot;issues relating to competition&quot; and &quot;high capacity in China&quot;. Merz said consultations between his government and Beijing &ndash; interrupted by political developments in Berlin and the pandemic &ndash; would take place &quot;at the beginning of next year at the latest, possibly even this year&quot;, with China as host. &#39;New levels&#39; Following talks with Xi and top Chinese leaders in the capital on Wednesday, Merz said that China had agreed to purchase up to 120 Airbus aircraft, adding that it &quot;demonstrates how worthwhile such trips can be&quot;. Other contracts were in the pipeline, Merz added. The two leaders stressed their commitment to developing closer strategic relations, with Xi telling Merz he was willing to take relations to &quot;new levels&quot;. Merz said he had also touched on the sensitive topic of Taiwan, the self-ruled island China claims as its territory and which it has not ruled out the use of force to annex. Any &quot;reunification&quot; must be done peacefully, Merz said. He also discussed the Ukraine war with Xi, who, according to Chinese state news agency Xinhua, said diplomacy was &quot;key to the issue&quot;. Merz said he urged Beijing to use its influence over Moscow, such as choking off the supply of items with potential military uses. &quot;I hope that in my talks I was able to foster a little understanding for the fact that the leadership of this country should also contribute to ending the war in Ukraine,&quot; Merz told reporters on Thursday before departing for Berlin. Merz was the latest in a string of Western leaders to court Beijing recently. He follows Britain&#39;s&nbsp;<a href="https://www.pakistantv.com/article/britains-starmer-hails-good-progress-after-meeting-chinas-xi" target="_blank" style="color:#0073e6;" rel="noopener noreferrer">Keir Starmer</a>, France&#39;s Emmanuel Macron and Canada&#39;s Mark Carney, as they recoil from the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.pakistantv.com/article/trump-announces-hike-in-us-global-tariff-rate-from-10-to-15" target="_blank" style="color:#0073e6;" rel="noopener noreferrer">mercurial policies</a>&nbsp;of Trump, who is also expected to visit from March 31.

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz gives a statement at Siemens Energy plant in Hangzhou, in eastern China’s Zhejiang Province on February 26, 2026. (AFP)

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Merz's first official visit to China comes as Berlin and Beijing seek to build on decades-old economic ties to weather global uncertainty sparked by US President Donald Trump's tariff blitz and erratic foreign policies.

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Merz says Germany, China must overcome trade gaps 'together'

Merz says Germany, China must overcome trade gaps 'together'