By Kalsang Rinchen
Dharamsala, July 16 – German Chancellor Angela Merkel was received earlier today with military honors by the Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao in Beijing. Merkel is on the second leg of a tour aimed at strengthening her country’s economic ties with key partners. She will also meet President Hu Jintao.
Relations between China and Germany soured in 2007 after she met with Tibet’s exiled leader the Dalai Lama at the German Chancellery. China accuses the Dalai Lama of “inciting separatism” and rebukes world leaders meeting with the Tibetan leader.
While Merkel’s meeting with the Dalai Lama was welcomed by rights groups and Tibet supporters it had drawn criticism within Germany’s grand coalition government from Merkel’s Christian Democrats (CDU) and their rival Social Democrats (SPD).
“I decide with whom I meet and where I meet them. I would like to see everyone within the government standing squarely behind this position, otherwise China’s respect for us can hardly be expected to grow,” Merkel had reacted.
A fellow conservative of Merkel’s, Roland Koch, the premier of Hesse state who has forged a friendship with the Dalai Lama over 25 years said Merkel was right not to cave in to Chinese pressure. “We Germans can be happy and proud that human rights issues mean so much to Angela Merkel and that she talks straight and acts accordingly.”
In January last year, Merkel raised the issue of Tibet with visiting Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao as he stopped over in Berlin on his European tour. Merkel urged Wen Jiabao to restart talks with the envoys of the Tibetan leader Dalai Lama. “We talked about the situation in Tibet and from the German side, I emphasised that we have a common interest that talks with the Dalai Lama get under way,” Merkel said at a joint news conference with Wen.
China is Germany’s largest trading partner in Asia, and Germany is the biggest European trading partner for China. Bilateral trade was valued at 82 billion euros ($105.7 billion) last year, accounting for more than a quarter of the total trade between China and the EU, according to Chinese statistics.
