At the end of October, Li Keqiang, China’s premier, toasted Angela Merkel. He and the German chancellor cheerily clanked large tankards of German-style dark beer brewed by the students at Hefei University in eastern China.
Mr Li’s high spirits in Hefei were easy to explain. The EU’s most powerful leader revealed she was “in principle, positive” towards granting market economy status (MES) to China, offering fresh hopes that one of Beijing’s most prized ambitions could be realised in 2016.
Still, Ms Merkel also admitted that MES was a double-edged sword. She warned that China still had work to do, particularly in the field of procurement contracts. Elsewhere on her trip, she cautioned that Europe’s steel and solar industries — seen as especially vulnerable to Chinese dumping — needed protection.