Chancellor Olaf Scholz held talks with dissident human rights lawyers in Beijing ahead of a controversial trip to China on Friday, a source close to him told the AFP news agency.

The meeting between Scholz and the dissidents was held on Tuesday via an encrypted video link, the source said.

The chancellor’s trip has drawn criticism at home over Berlin’s growing economic dependence on Beijing and sparked controversy for coming so shortly after President Xi Jinping, who strengthened his power in China just last month.

Scholz’s unnamed interlocutors are said to have been known in their field, and some of them have already served several years in prison, the source said.

The human rights lawyers participated in the video conference from a location in the German embassy in Beijing.

The dissidents and their families spoke “strongly” about the challenging living and working conditions they faced in China, the source said.

Meetings with human rights activists and other civil society representatives are typically part of the program for German heads of state and government visiting China.

However, due to strict restrictions related to the coronavirus in China, an in-person meeting was not possible this time.

Anyone who came into contact with Scholz should have stayed in quarantine for ten days after meeting in a state-controlled facility.

For this reason, the Scholz office decided to hold the meeting virtually.

During the visit to Beijing, Scholz said he hopes to “further develop” economic cooperation, alluding to points of contention.

The chancellor indicated before his departure that he would raise sensitive issues such as respect for civil liberties and the rights of minorities in Xinjiang.

“It is crucial that we should never remain silent when we see human rights violations,” Scholz told reporters at a news conference with Premier Li Keqiang on Friday.

“I didn’t do it and it should never happen when other interlocutors travel to China and have conversations.”