Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s visit to China has reignited debate over Germany’s long-term strategy toward Beijing. With German industry deeply intertwined with the Chinese market, and political leaders under pressure to reduce strategic dependencies, the trip highlights the tension between economic interests and security concerns.
Join the American Council on Germany for a discussion on March 2, 2026, with ACG Board member Tara Hariharan and China expert Dr. Mareike Ohlberg to examine what the trip reveals about China’s place on the world stage and Germany’s strategic thinking. How is the next generation of political leadership navigating economic interdependence and geopolitical rivalry? What does this mean for Europe’s broader China policy – and for transatlantic coordination at a time of growing global fragmentation?
Tara Hariharan is Managing Director of Global Macro Research and Head of Macro Research at NWI Management LP, a New York-based emerging markets-focused hedge fund. She regularly presents her assessments of the People’s Republic of China’s (PRC) economy and U.S.-China relations to senior U.S. policymakers and International Monetary Fund representatives. Ms. Hariharan is a life member of the Council on Foreign Relations and a Millennium Leadership fellow at the Atlantic Council. She was a 2014 German Marshall Fund Marshall Memorial fellow, a 2016 American Council on Germany (ACG) young leader, and a 2022 Economic Club of New York fellow. In 2022, she was elected to ACG’s board. She is also a member of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Chief Economists’ Committee. Elected to the Inter-American Dialogue in 2021, she regularly contributes to its publications on trade flows and the PRC’s influence on Latin America. Ms. Hariharan holds a bachelor’s degree summa cum laude in anthropology from Princeton University.
Dr. Mareike Ohlberg is a Senior Fellow in the Indo-Pacific Program at the German Marshall Fund of the United States and leads the Stockholm China Forum. She is based at GMF’s Berlin Office. Before joining GMF, Dr. Ohlberg worked as an analyst at the Mercator Institute for China Studies, where she focused on China’s media and digital policies as well as the Chinese Communist Party’s influence campaigns in Europe. Prior to that, she was an An Wang postdoctoral fellow at Harvard University’s Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies and a postdoctoral fellow at Shih-Hsin University in Taipei. She spent several years living and working in Greater China. She is co-author of the book Hidden Hand: How the Communist Party of China is Reshaping the World (2020). Dr. Ohlberg has a doctorate in Chinese Studies from the University of Heidelberg and a master’s degree in East Asian Regional Studies from Columbia University. She is a frequent commentator in the media on the global implications of China’s rise.
