AfD co-leader Alice Weidel and her Bundestag federal parliamentary colleagues, Petr Bystron and Peter Felser, spent almost a week in Beijing and Shanghai at the end of June.

Upon their return, Felser told DW that he supposed it was his party's good results in the German polls which had sparked the interest of the Chinese.

She spent six years living there on a German Academic Exchange Service scholarship and completed her doctorate on the Chinese pension system, before moving on to work for Goldman Sachs.

Geopolitically, said Schroeder, the AfD sees the traditional Western ties with the United States, which it regards as hegemonic, as having past their use-by date.

The member of the European Parliament from Saxony, who aligns himself with the right-wing side of his party, has attracted attention in the past for multiple pro-China statements.

For example: The party has opposed the use of components from the Chinese communications equipment supplier Huawei in the expansion of 5G mobile internet services in Germany.

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