Friedrich Merz, the frontrunner in the race to become Germany’s chancellor, has warned German companies about the “great risk” of investing in China.

Germany’s opposition leader has vowed to bar people from entering the country without proper papers and to step up deportations if he is elected as chancellor next month, as a knife attack by a rejected asylum-seeker spills over into an election campaign in which he is the front-runner.

Friedrich Merz, the conservative front-runner in the race for Germany’s chancellorship, called for a radical overhaul of the country’s migration policy including permanent border checks. The comments come after an asylum seeker from Afghanistan was taken into custody over a fatal stabbing of a two-year-old child and a man in a park on Wednesday.

The conservative leader wants to impose strict border controls after knife killings in Aschaffenburg this week.

Friedrich Merz, the leading candidate for the chancellery in Germany's upcoming election, said a leaked briefing by Germany's ambassador to the United States heavily criticising Donald Trump was damaging to the German government's reputation.

In Germany, the fatal knife attack by a 28-year-old Afghan in Aschaffenburg has once again triggered a debate on asylum. CDU leader Friedrich Merz

BERLIN (Reuters) - Germany will eventually have to spend more than 2% of economic output on defence but must first reform its procurement system to get more bang for its buck, opposition leader Friedrich Merz, who is tipped to become the next chancellor, said on Thursday.

AfD leader Alice Weidel has called for a vote in the German parliament next week on closing Germany's borders and turning back irregular migrants. "The knife terror of Aschaffenburg must have consequences now," she said on social media.

The chairman of the party and fraction of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), Friedrich Merz, gives a press conference in the German parliament in Berlin, in reaction to the knife attack on January 22 in Aschaffenburg.

Friedrich Merz and his conservatives view Angela Merkel’s legacy as a liability in their battle with the far right.

Latest YouGov poll shows Friedrich Merz's conservative CDU/CSU bloc commanding 28% of voter support, leading Chancellor Scholz's Social Democrats by 9 percentage points - Anadolu Ajansı

German opposition leader Friedrich Merz, tipped to become chancellor in next month's election, said on Tuesday U.S. President Donald Trump could prove an interesting partner for Europe provided the region had a strong common negotiating position.