China Postpones Talks With German Finance Chief at Short Notice

(Bloomberg) -- China’s finance ministry postponed a meeting scheduled for Wednesday between German Finance Minister Christian Lindner and his counterpart in the government in Beijing.

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Nadine Kalwey, a spokeswoman for Lindner’s ministry, said the talks with Liu Kun had been postponed “for scheduling reasons” and China had offered an alternative date “at short notice.”

“This was not possible for logistical reasons,” Kalwey said at the regular government news conference in Berlin. “The meeting will be held at a later date,” she added. There was no immediate comment from the Chinese government.

Lindner had planned to stop in Beijing to lay some of the groundwork for next month’s Chinese-German government consultations, before heading to the May 11-13 meeting of Group of Seven finance ministers and central bank governors in Niigata, Japan.

The German finance minister is also the chairman of the Free Democrats, one of the three parties in Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s ruling coalition along with the Social Democrats and Greens.

China reacted angrily to a visit to Taiwan in March by Lindner’s FDP party colleague, Education and Research Minister Bettina Stark-Watzinger, calling it an “egregious act” and accusing the government in Berlin of meddling in China’s domestic affairs.

Reinhard Buetikofer, a Greens member of the European Parliament, said the Chinese postponement was an “affront” that doesn’t only concern the FDP.

“The right reaction from Berlin would be for one minister each from the SPD and the Greens to fly to Taiwan soon,” Buetikofer, who chairs the parliament’s delegation for relations with China, said in a tweet. “We will not let Beijing dictate our China and Taiwan policy.”

In March 2021, Buetikofer was one of 10 individuals in the EU sanctioned by China, which said they “severely harm China’s sovereignty and interests and maliciously spread lies and disinformation.”

China described the measures as a response to penalties imposed by the EU on a Chinese entity and individuals accused of human rights abuses in Xinjiang.

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