German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier is to undertake a three-day trip to China later this week, his spokesman announced Wednesday, reported dpa.
On Friday, at the start of the trip, Steinmeierr is to meet Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi and Prime Minister Wen Jiabao, discussing the working conditions for journalists, particularly during the Olympic Games being hosted by Beijing in August.
The foreign minister is also to visit Sichuan Province, which was devastated by an earthquake on May 12, to assess the work of German aid organizations, spokesman Martin Jaeger said.
Steinmeier's second trip to China follows an invitation issued by Yang when he visited Berlin in January.
That visit marked the end of a marked chill in German-Chinese relations that followed Chancellor Angela Merkel's exchange of views with the exiled Tibetan leader, the Dalai Lama, in the chancellery in Berlin in September last year.