Until late last month Xi Jinping was looking forward to easy “soft power” victories at this week’s meetings with Angela Merkel in Berlin and the G20 summit in Hamburg — the latest opportunities for China to shine on a global stage.

But news that the country’s most famous political prisoner is gravely ill has thrown a spanner in the works, exposing the deep gulf that remains between Beijing and Berlin, while lingering trade and economic disputes continue to complicate Sino-EU relations.

“For Beijing the goal is to present itself as a generous, co-operative and friendly power,” says Sebastian Heilmann, president of the Mercator Institute for China Studies in Berlin. “However, the two countries continue to have completely different understandings of basic political order, rule of law and civil society.”