Olaf Scholz leads a blue-chip business delegation to China

Rarely in recent years has a routine inaugural trip of a head of government been watched with such keen interest at home and abroad. When Germany’s Social Democrat chancellor, Olaf Scholz, travels to Beijing for a one-day visit on November 3rd, he will be the first Western leader to do so since the start of the covid-19 pandemic. Emmanuel Macron, France’s president, was keen to travel together with Mr Scholz, though preferably not right after China’s leader, Xi Jinping, got himself anointed as Communist Party chief for a norm-busting third term. Mr Scholz said nein. He is instead taking along 12 CEOs of German blue-chip firms, including the bosses of Merck, a drug company, Siemens, an engineering behemoth, and Volkswagen, Europe’s biggest carmaker.