Companies should not rely on state support when they suffer losses in business with China. CDU/CSU election frontrunner Friedrich Merz said this on the fringes of a foreign policy speech at the Körber Foundation. It was out of the question for companies to deliberately seek out the risk of investing in China and for the state to then have to socialize any losses. Referring to China, he said: „This is not a constitutional state by our standards.“ According to Merz, even companies that are only in talks with Chinese companies „must expect major disruption.“