German Chancellor Friedrich Merz called on President Xi Jinping to support a joint US-European push to achieve a ceasefire in Ukraine, in his first phone call with the Chinese leader on Friday, Bloomberg reports.
Merz stressed that Russia’s war of aggression on Ukraine has a bearing on Germany’s national security, the chancellor’s spokesman, Stefan Kornelius, said in a statement after the call. The German leader has recently publicly advocated spending up to 5% of the German economy on defense.
