Illustration:Liu Rui/GT

Chinese Premier Li Keqiang on Saturday concluded his second trip to Germany since taking office, the first leg of his ongoing European tour.

During Chinese President Xi Jinping's State visit to Germany in March, Sino-German relations were upgraded to a comprehensive strategic partnership, and high-level dialogue mechanisms on diplomacy, security, finance and fiscal issues were either established or improved.

In July, German Chancellor Angela Merkel made her seventh visit to China.

Such frequent and highly effective interactions between Chinese and German leaderships have attracted worldwide attention. Beijing and Berlin, as two important players in Asia and Europe respectively, will exert enormous influence upon the international community as they engage in intensive cooperation.

Pragmatism is perhaps the biggest reason why Chinese and German leaders appreciate each other, and it is also what is most needed in the current world buffeted by turbulence, crises and leadership deficits.

Bilateral trade between China and Germany reached $161.6 billion in 2013, equal to China's trade with the UK, France and Italy in all. More than half of EU exports to China are from Germany, as are 40 percent of technology transfers to China from the EU.

Nevertheless, both Beijing and Berlin are confronted with conspicuous economic challenges.

Due to a slowdown in demand from emerging economies, Germany has experienced a sharp slump in exports. It is predicted that its economic growth rate will decrease to 1.2 percent in 2015.

Meanwhile, China is working hard to transform its economic growth model. China urgently needs Germany's advanced technologies and management expertise to upgrade its industrial level. The two sides expect to deepen cooperation in environmental technology, new energy, and husbandry.

The collaboration in economy and trade, however, will not be without obstacles. The German public have criticized Merkel for years for her "courtship" of China for the sake of Germany's sluggish economy. Foreign media outlets also claim that the two nations are actually strange bedfellows despite the seemingly harmonious ties at the moment.

But these judgments are misplaced. Germany, as a leading European country, has the responsibility of shoring up the floundering economy of the eurozone. With China's slowing economic growth and shrinking external demand, Beijing-Berlin cooperation can only be mutually beneficial.

It should be noted that negative public opinion across Germany about China is largely a product of distorted media reports. They tend to offer the same old criticism of China's political and social system, focusing too much on negative information instead of achievements.

German media should change their comfortable views and faintly arrogant attitude toward Beijing, while China should do more to improve its soft power, particularly boosting its ability to communicate with other countries.

During the visit, Li and Merkel officially signed a framework agreement to accelerate the establishment of an innovative partnership. Innovation will not be confined to trade and technology; China is eager to learn advanced economic and social governance practices from Germany.

Undoubtedly, innovation can also flow from East to West. Beijing is increasingly competitive in smart power grids, electric automobiles and other sectors. Xi once remarked, "I believe that when Made-in-Germany and Made-in-China could join hands in good faith to cooperate, what we make will not only be high-quality products but also the happiness and ideals of our two peoples."

Both countries have decided to expand their strategic dialogue to the diplomatic and security fields in 2015. According to Sebastian Heilmann, founding director of the Mercator Institute for China Studies in Berlin, Chinese diplomacy is reshaping the international order in a silent but orderly way, and Europe should not hold it back.

At the same time, Berlin is also being proactive diplomatically. In February, German President Joachim Gauck said at the 50th Munich Security Conference that Germany should engage as a good partner earlier, more decisively and more substantially in international affairs.

This is the signal of Germany's vigorous effort to adjust its foreign policy. At the moment, Merkel's top diplomatic priority is stabilizing Germany's relations with Russia after the Ukraine crisis. In the meantime, Beijing expects Berlin to support its Silk Road economic belt and help boost Sino-European ties. Though such issues as monitoring and espionage have mired US-German relations in trouble, Beijing does not expect Berlin to give up "cross-Atlanticism." At the moment, as many as 59 percent of Germans have named China a political threat.

Nonetheless, as the US is suffering from declining national power and increasing isolation in the international community, it is imperative to build a more powerful Beijing-Berlin coalition in a pragmatic, active and innovative spirit to ensure the stability and prosperity of Eurasia.

The author is a research fellow with the Charhar Institute and an adjunct fellow with the Center for International and Strategic Studies, Peking University. opinion@globaltimes.com.cn