Europe-China Relations and Cooperation Potentials in light of the Ukraine War

Parliamentary Meeting at the Bundestag

Over the past 50 years, political tensions in economic relations between Germany and China have tended to be the exception. This has changed as a result of flaring international conflicts such as the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine and the associated geostrategic consequences. China’s open claim to power is changing the geopolitical situation, to which the German government must respond. For this reason, the German government has agreed and published its own China strategy for the first time in history.

Against this backdrop, a parliamentary meeting on “Europe-China Relations and Cooperation Potentials in light of the Ukraine War” took place in the Bundestag on November 28. After being welcomed by our Director, Dr. Mayssoun Zein Al Din, Dr. Hans-Peter Friedrich, Chairman of the German-Chinese Parliamentary Group, and Mr. Michael Müller, Member of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, gave brief introductory speeches.

This was followed by a lecture by our Fellow Prof. Zhang Xin from the Faculty of Politics and International Relations at East China Normal University in Shanghai, who is also Deputy Director of the Center for Russian Studies there. As part of his research project at the Academy, he will address the topic of “Critical geopolitics of connectivity and coordination between China, Russia and Turkey”.

There was a lively debate with an international group of guests from politics, business, science and research. Different perspectives and assessments of the current situation were shared and an open discussion took place on individual approaches to solutions.