I'm John Batsch who with my colleague Judy Dempsey of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

Judy's the editor-in-chief of Strategic Europe and she's in Berlin.

Recently you saw headlines of she-gen-Ping the general secretary

with a troubled economy looking for foreign investment,

travel to the EU, visiting Mr McCrone in Paris, and then on to Belgrade and Budapest.

Belgrade and Budapest starts with a B, but it doesn't say Berlin.

Given that Mr Schultz was in Beijing not once but twice in easy memory,

and the puzzlement about Germany carrying on with a major supplier of war fighting in Ukraine, the return visit

did not happen.

Judy, is there an explanation as to why Shijinping left out Berlin in his

whirlwind embassy for foreign investment? He didn't have to go to Berlin because he got

what he wanted from Shores, Shores with a huge lobby, industry, economics lobby,

and in Beijing last month.

And also, if she was to come to Germany, I think it might have been a reciprocal bilateral state visit,

rather than popping into Berlin after Paris, Belgrade, and Budapest.

So, you know, the business was done. It wasn't entirely successful for Schultz. He really

didn't get what he wanted, particularly over trying to persuade the to reduce or stop the support

for Russia's war against Ukraine and the trade deals.

Well, the Chinese are just running way ahead of German industry and its drive for artificial intelligence in an

electrical car industry. So essentially I think the

Chancellor here in Berlin they could live very easily without G coming and

there would have been demonstrations.

...