China–Germany relations

China–German relations, also called Sino-German relations, are the international relations between China and Germany. Until 1914, the Germans leased concessions in China, including little parts of Yantai City and Qingdao on Shandong Peninsula. After World War I, during which the Germans lost all their leased territories in China, Sino-German relations gradually improved as German military advisers assisted the Kuomintang government's National Revolutionary Army, though this would change during the 1930s as Adolf Hitler gradually allied himself with Japan. During the aftermath of the Eastern Front (World War II), Germany was divided in two states: a liberal and democratic West Germany and a communist East Germany. Cold War tensions led to a West German alliance with the United States against communism and thus allied against the People's Republic of China (PRC). The Eastern part was allied through the Soviet Union with the PRC. After German reunification, relations between Germany and China improved.

History

Early contacts

Although the German composer J.S. Bach never visited China in his lifetime, his statue now welcomes visitors entering Shanghai from the city's main railway station.

In The Chinese Room of the Royal Palace, Berlin, considerable effort was invested in creating Chinese decorations and furnishings (19th Century depiction by Eduard Gaertner).

Unlike Portugal or the Netherlands, German states were not involved, on the state level, in the early (16-17th centuries) contacts between Europe and China. Nonetheless, a number of individual Germans reached China at that time, in particular as Jesuit missionaries. Some of them played a significant role in China's history, as did Johann Adam Schall von Bell (in China in 1619–1666), who was in Beijing when it was taken by the Manchus in 1644, and soon became a trusted counselor of the early Qing leaders. Meanwhile, in Rome another German Jesuit, Athanasius Kircher, who never got to go to China himself, used reports of other Jesuits in China to compile China Illustrata, a work that was instrumental in popularizing knowledge about China among the 17th-century European readers.^{[citation needed]}

The earliest Sino-German trade occurred overland through Siberia, and was subject to transit taxes by the Russian government. To make trading more profitable, Prussia decided to take the sea route, and the first German merchant ships arrived in Qing China, as part of the Royal Prussian Asian Trading Company of Emden in the 1750s. In 1861, after China's defeat in the Second Opium War, the Treaty of Tientsin was signed, which opened formal commercial relations between various European states, including Prussia, with China.^[1]

Early diplomatic relations

In 1859, following the Qing dynasty's defeat in the Second Opium War, Prussia sent the Eulenburg Expedition to negotiate commercial treaties with the Qing, the Empire of Japan and Siam. On 2 September 1861, Friedrich Albrecht zu Eulenburg and a representative from the Zongli Yamen signed the Treaty of Tianjin, which opened formal commercial relations between China and Prussia, which represented the German Customs Union. Prussia would later on become the dominant and leading part of the newly founded German Empire. The treaty would govern Sino-German relations until World War I, when the Republic of China repudiated the treaty unilaterally.^{[citation needed]}

During the late 19th century, Sino-foreign trade was dominated by the British Empire, and Otto von Bismarck was eager to establish German footholds in China to balance the British dominance. In 1885, Bismarck had the Reichstag pass a steamship subsidy bill which offered direct service to China. In the same year, he sent the first German banking and industrial survey group to evaluate investment possibilities, which led to the establishment of the Deutsch-Asiatische Bank in 1890. Through these efforts, Germany was second to Britain in trading and shipping in China by 1896.^{[citation needed]}

Due to the decisiveness of steam-powered fleets over the junks of the small Imperial Chinese Navy during China's conflicts with European powers in the mid-nineteenth century, the Chinese began a naval construction program in the 1880s to meet these threats more effectively. They enlisted British and German assistance, and two Dingyuan-class ironclads were ordered from Germany, the Dingyuan and the Zhenyuan.^[2]^[3]

In 1897, the German empire took advantage of the murder of two German missionaries to invade Qingdao and founded the Jiaozhou Bay colony. Germany took control of key points in the Shandong Peninsula. In 1898, it leased for 99 years Jiaozhou Bay and its port of Qingdao under threat of force. Development was a high priority for Berlin. Over 200 million marks were invested in world-class harbor facilities such as berths, heavy machinery, rail yards, and a floating dry dock. Private enterprise worked across the Shandong Province, opening mines, banks, breweries, factories, shops and rail lines.^[4] In 1900, Germany took part in the Eight-Nation Alliance that was sent to relieve the Siege of the International Legations in Beijing during the Boxer Uprising. China paid a large annual indemnity.^{[citation needed]}

In 1907–1908, Kaiser Wilhelm II sent Prince of Bülow, Chancellor at the time, to discuss a potential treaty of triple alliance with the Qing high-ranking official Yuan and President Theodore Roosevelt.^[5] But it was overturned in favor of the Gentlemen's Agreement of 1907 and due to the passing of Grand Empress Dowager, Cixi.^{[citation needed]}

During the Xinhai revolution, revolutionaries killed a German arms dealer in Hankou as he was delivering arms to the Qing.^[6] Revolutionaries killed 2 Germans and wounded 2 other Germans at the battle of Hanyang, including a former colonel.^[7]

Early twentieth century

Wang Jingwei with German diplomats as head of the state of Japanese puppet China

The German military had a major role in Republican China.^[8] The German Navy's East Asia Squadron was in charge of Germany's concessions at Qingdao, and spent heavily to set up modern facilities that would be a showcase for Asia. The Empire of Japan seized the German operations in 1914 after sharp battles. After World War I, the Weimar Republic provided extensive advisory services to the under Japan rule Republic of China, especially training for the Japanese led Chinese army.^{[citation needed]}

As well as studying and visiting Japan, Germans visited and studied China in between the two World Wars.^{[citation needed]}

Colonel General Hans von Seeckt, the former commander the German army, organized the training of Japanese led China's elite army units and the beginning civil war that included military activities against the Chinese Communists from 1933 to 1935.^[9] All military academies had German officers, as did most army units. In addition, German engineers provided expertise and bankers provided loans for China's railroad system. Trade with Germany flourished in the 1920s, with Germany as China's largest supplier of government credit.^{[citation needed]} According to some not confirmed sources in 1937, H.H. Kung visited Germany in an attempt "to convince Hitler to side with China against Japan".^[10]^[11] With assurances of the contrary Nazi Germany sided with the Japanese after they invaded China the following month and the last important German advisor left in 1938.^[12]^[13]

However, at the same time, the exiled German Communist Otto Braun was in China as a Comintern agent, probably sent in 1934, but most probably a double agent, to advise the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) on military strategy and taking a major part in The Long March under a Chinese name, Li De (Chinese: 李德; pinyin: Lǐ Dé); it was only many years later that Otto Braun and "Li De" came to be known as the same person.^[14]

World War II (1941–1945)

Sino-German cooperation collapsed in 1939 due to the start of World War II in Europe, forcing many Chinese nationals to leave Germany due to increased government surveillance and coercion. The example the Japan set in the Second Sino-Japanese War forced Hitler to replace China with Japan as the Nazi's strategic ally in East Asia.^[15] Following the Japanese Attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941, the Chinese declared war on Germany, which resulted in the Gestapo launching mass arrests of Chinese nationals across Germany. The very few Chinese in German-occupied Poland were also victims of Nazi Germany, with 13 deported from Warsaw to the Gross-Rosen concentration camp in 1944.^[16] At the end of the war, the Chinese communities in cities such as Berlin, Hamburg, and Bremen that existed before the war were destroyed.^{[citation needed]}

Division of Germany and the Cold War (1945-1990)

China's Dong Biwu (second from the right) with Otto Grotewohl (third from the right) and Walter Ulbricht (fourth from the right) in East-Berlin (1958)

The Federal Republic of Germany or West Germany initially did not recognize the People's Republic of China primarily because of its hard-line anti-communist foreign policy of the Hallstein Doctrine. West Germany formally supported the One-China policy, in hopes of finding Chinese backing of the reunification of Germany. In October 1972, West Germany officially established diplomatic contacts with the PRC, although unofficial contacts had been in existence since 1964.^[17]^[18]^[19]

The German Democratic Republic also managed to have good relations with the PRC, despite the Sino-Soviet Split that occurred for most of the Cold War until the 1989 Sino-Soviet Summit.^[20] Since the March 1982 speech on Sino-Soviet rapprochement by General Secretary Leonid Brezhnev to the Communist Party of Uzbekistan in Tashkent, Sino-East German relations began to steadily improve. In June 1986, Foreign Minister Wu Xueqian visited East Berlin in the highest-level Chinese delegation to Eastern Europe since the 1961 split.^[21] Moreover, Chairman Erich Honecker visited Beijing in early October 1986, where he was met by President Li Xiannian with in a welcoming ceremony on Tiananmen Square a military band and a marchpast by the People's Liberation Army honor guard. The visit became the first official visit by an Eastern Bloc leader to the PRC.^[22]^[23]

Reunified Germany (1990-present)

Early post-communism in united Germany

The frequent high-level diplomatic visits are acknowledged to have helped guarantee the smooth development of Sino-German relations. From 1993 to 1998, German and Chinese leaders met face-to-face 52 times: Among those Chinese leaders who visited Germany were Jiang Zemin, former General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party; Qiao Shi, former Chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress (NPC); and Li Peng, former Premier of China and Chairman of the NPC Standing. Meanwhile, German leaders who visited China included President Roman Herzog, Chancellor Helmut Kohl, Foreign Minister Klaus Kinkel and Minister of State at the German Federal Foreign Office Ludger Volmer. Among these leaders, Chancellor Kohl visited China twice in 1993 and 1995. Since the new German government came into power in October 1998, Chancellor Gerhard Schröder has paid three visits to China. One after another from Germany came Vice Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer, Defense Minister Rudolf Scharping, and Minister of Economics and Technology Werner Müller. At the same time, Germany welcomed Chinese Primer Zhu Rongji, Foreign Minister Tang Jiaxuan, State Councilor Wu Yi, member of the Political Bureau of the CCP Central Committee Wei Jianxing as well as member of the CCP Politburo Standing Committee Hu Jintao.

After 2000

Relations would continue to improve even more after 1998. For instance, Berlin and Peking (at that time yet called Peking), and fervently opposed the invasion of Iraq made by the United States in 2003, and in 2006 Germany (the largest economy and the most populous country of the European Union) and the Chinese Republic further enhanced their foreign political, economic and diplomatic relations and even ties within one of an EU-Sino strategic partnerships. For example, Germany and Republic of China ^{[citation needed]} also opposed direct military involvement of US in the 2011 Libyan civil war that had been made after the liberation of the accused Libean medical sisters and doctors, that were accused of crimes against children there, and liberated by the French President.^{[citation needed]}

Huawei, a major Chinese tech company, has collaborated with Porsche Design, a German design company in developing their Porsche Design Huawei Smartwatch GT 2^[24]^[25]

Before the 2011 visit of China's PM Wen Jiabao, the Chinese government issued a "White Book on the accomplishments and perspective of Sino-German cooperation", the first of its kind for a European country. The visit also marked the first Sino-German government consultations, an exclusive mechanism for Sino-German communications.

In 2018, Mercedes-Benz apologized to China for quoting the Dalai Lama on Instagram.^[26]

In July 2019, the UN ambassadors from 22 nations, including Germany, signed a joint letter to the United Nations Human Rights Council condemning China's persecution of the Uyghurs as well as its mistreatment of other minority groups, urging the CCP leader Xi Jinping's government to close the Xinjiang internment camps.^[27]^[28] In 2019, Volkswagen Group came under pressure for cooperating with the Chinese government in the region of Xinjiang.^[29]

In September 2019, China's ambassador to Germany stated that the meeting between Germany's foreign minister and Hong Kong activist Joshua Wong will damage relations with China.^[30]

2020-present

On 22 April 2020, Germany's Interior Ministry released a letter revealing that Chinese diplomats had contacted German Government officials "to encourage them" "to make positive statements on how China was handling the coronavirus pandemic". The German government did not comply with these requests.^[31]

In June 2020, Germany opposed the Hong Kong national security law.^[32]

On 6 October 2020, Germany's ambassador to the UN, on behalf of the group of 39 countries including Germany, the U.K. and the U.S., made a statement to denounce China for its treatment of ethnic minorities and for curtailing freedoms in Hong Kong.^[33]

In December 2020, with Germany ending its two-year term on the United Nations Security Council, Chinese Ambassador Geng Shuang responded "Out of the bottom of my heart: good riddance" in response to the German Ambassador Christoph Heusgen's appeal to free two Canadians Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor detained in China.^[34]

In October 2021, a tweet from the Global Times called for a "final solution to the Taiwan question" which was condemned by German politician Frank Müller-Rosentritt for its similarity to the “final solution to the Jewish question” which resulted in the Holocaust.^[35]

In December 2021, as a result of a diplomatic spat between Lithuania and China over Taiwan and human rights China pressured Continental AG and other German companies to stop doing business with Lithuania.^[36]^[37] The Bundesverband der Deutschen Industrie described the expansion of the ban on importing Lithuanian goods to components in integrated supply chains as a "devastating own goal."^[38] The German government approved a quarter ownership for China shipper, COSCO, in the Hamburg container terminal port in May 2023.^[39]

In September 2023, German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock named Xi Jinping a dictator next to Vladimir Putin.^[40] In April 2024, German authorities arrested three German nationals for spying for China and arranging illicit military technology transfers.^[41]^[42] The same month, authorities arrested a suspected spy working for Maximilian Krah.^[43]^[44] In July 2024, Germany blocked the sale of a gas turbine business to a subsidiary of China State Shipbuilding Corporation for national security reasons.^[45] The same month, the German government announced a deal with telecommunication companies in the country to remove Chinese 5G equipment by 2029.^[46]

In July 2024, Germany summoned the Chinese ambassador over a 2021 cyber-attack against the Federal Agency for Cartography and Geodesy attributed to "Chinese state actors" for the "purpose of espionage."^[47] In August 2024, Germany's IT sector trade association reported that 45% of German businesses had suffered cyberattacks or industrial espionage traced to China.^[48] In October 2024, a Chinese woman was arrested in Leipzig on suspicion passing information on arms deliveries to Chinese intelligence.^[49]^[50]

Trade

Chinese markets are important for German industry, particularly the German automotive industry.^[51]^: 24 Germany is China's biggest trading partner and technology exporter in Europe.^[52]

The trade volume between China and Germany surpassed 100 billion U.S. dollars in 2008.^[53]^{[needs independent confirmation]}

By 2014, German Chancellor Angela Merkel had visited China on trade missions seven times since assuming office in 2005; this underlines the importance of China to the German economy.^[54]

In February 2024, Volkswagen Group and Chinese electric vehicle manufacturer XPeng signed a technology cooperation and joint development agreement on platform and software.^[55]

Resident diplomatic missions

China has an embassy in Berlin and consulates-general in Düsseldorf, Frankfurt, Hamburg and Munich.^[56]
Germany has an embassy in Beijing and consulates-general in Chengdu, Guangzhou, Hong Kong, Shanghai and Shenyang.^[57]

Embassy of China in Berlin
Consulate-General of China in Munich
Consulate-General of Germany in Shanghai

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