In China, Germany’s foreign minister does not hold back—and is still welcomed

THE CHINESE government rolled out the red carpet for the visit of Annalena Baerbock on April 14th. Qin Gang, the Chinese foreign minister, spent around six hours with his German counterpart, which included a factory visit to a German company in Tianjin, his native city, a ride on a high-speed train from Tianjin to Beijing, a lunch and a press conference at a governmental guest house. Ms Baerbock also met Han Zheng, China’s vice-president, and Wang Yi, another senior foreign-policy official.The exchange was always polite, even though Ms Baerbock had set a robust tone for her visit in a statement made as she left Berlin, when she talked about the “horror scenario of a military escalation in the Taiwan Strait” through which a large part of global maritime trade passes every day. She said that she intended to underline with her visit the European view that a change to the status quo in the strait, let alone a , would be unacceptable.