The Chinese TV presenter Liu Xin is not only an influential woman on Beijing's state television.

She speaks five languages, including German.

Recently, Liu came down sarcastically on calls from the EU and the US for China to use its influence in Russia and persuade President Vladimir Putin to withdraw his troops from Ukraine.

"Can you help me fight your friend so I can focus on fighting you later?" Liu wrote.

Henrik Ankenbrand

Economic correspondent for China based in Shanghai.

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Those familiar with Beijing politics say that Europe should have no illusions when EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and Council President Charles Michel meet China's President Xi Jinping at the virtual "EU-China Summit" on Friday: The friend-enemy phrase precisely describes Beijing's view that the West wants to slow down the risers from the Far East in the long term.

On Wednesday, China's foreign minister appeared with his counterpart Sergei Lavrov and called him an "old friend".

China will receive a warning on Friday not to deliver weapons to Russia and not to buy up the fillets in the Russian energy industry left by the West with its state-owned companies and thus circumvent the sanctions, according to Brussels.

The fact that the EU has a serious problem with its largest trading partner is also becoming clear in Shanghai these days.

There, the government is shaking up the international supply chains with ever new lockdowns because President Xi stubbornly sticks to his “zero Covid policy” to demonstrate the “superiority” of the Chinese system, which he even has written in China’s textbooks.

Too dependent on China

The Berlin Merics Institute warns that the "geopolitical" risks in business with the People's Republic are increasing.

From now on, companies would have to “put much more weight” on this in their investments in order not to be caught off guard by their dependence on China – as was the case after the disaster with Russia – should the People's Liberation Army really invade Taiwan.

In fact, the rethinking process in German companies has long since begun.

Even the car manufacturer Volkswagen, which sells 40 percent of its cars in its "second home" China and stands for its dependence on the country in the Far East like no other group, now wants to invest primarily in the USA - in some reports it is in view of the increasing tensions talked with Beijing about a "rethinking" in the supervisory board of the Wolfsburg group.

The rethinking has long since begun

In a representative survey of 4,000 German companies conducted by the Munich research institute Ifo and available to the FAZ, almost every second manufacturer states that although it is dependent on Chinese inputs, it is planning to reduce imports from China.

Most important reason: Reduce dependency on the country.

Because what this can mean for sales and profits is made clear in the current warnings from business associations: In view of the factories and ports in China that are in lockdown, the entire goods cycle in the world is at risk.

In addition to the increased freight costs, at least 40 percent give "political uncertainty" as the reason for their waning enthusiasm for business in China.