Early contacts outside the entrance of Shanghai's main railway station; Bach never visited China. was decorated and furnished in Chinese styles. This is
Eduard Gaertner's 19th century painting of the room. Unlike
Portugal or the
Netherlands, German states were not involved, on the state level, in the early (16th-17th centuries) in 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. 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.
Early diplomatic relations and
German chancellor Otto von Bismarck in Bismarck's mansion at
Friedrichsruh in 1896. 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. 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. 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 s were ordered from Germany, the
Dingyuan and the
Zhenyuan. and
Shandong Province have many German remnants, like
Tsingtao Brewery, European townhouses,
Qingdao–Jinan railway, and many factories and coal mines. 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 (or until 1997, as the British did in Hong Kong's New Territories) 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. 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 Rebellion. The Kaiser called for very harsh punishment of the Chinese, but his soldiers arrived after the fighting was largely over. 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. But it was overturned in favor of the
Gentlemen's Agreement of 1907 and due to the passing of Grand Empress Dowager,
Cixi. During the
Xinhai revolution, revolutionaries killed a German arms dealer in Hankou as he was delivering arms to the Qing. Revolutionaries killed 2 Germans and wounded 2 other Germans at the battle of Hanyang, including a former colonel.
Early 20th century with
German diplomats as head of the state of Japanese puppet China The German military had a major role in Republican China. 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 Republic of China, especially training for the Chinese army. As well as studying and visiting Japan, Germans visited and studied China in between the two World Wars. Colonel General
Hans von Seeckt, the former commander the German army, organized the training of China's elite army units and the beginning civil war that included military activities against the Chinese Communists from 1933 to 1935. 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. 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". 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. However, at the same time, the exiled German Communist
Otto Braun was in China as a
Comintern agent, probably sent in 1934, 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 (); it was only many years later that Otto Braun and "Li De" came to be known as the same person.
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. 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. At the end of the war, the Chinese communities in cities such as
Berlin,
Hamburg, and
Bremen that existed before the war were destroyed.
Division of Germany and the Cold War (1945–1990) (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. The
German Democratic Republic or
East Germany 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. 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. Moreover, Chairman
Erich Honecker visited
Beijing in early October 1986, where he was met by Chinese 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.
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.
2000s 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 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.
Huawei, a major Chinese tech company, has collaborated with
Porsche Design, a German design company in developing their Porsche Design Huawei Smartwatch GT 2
2010s 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. 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.
2020s 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. 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. 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. 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. 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." The German government approved a quarter ownership for China shipper,
COSCO, in the Hamburg container terminal port in May 2023. 2023 also brought the Federal Government Strategy on China, which laid out the German government's stance on China. In September 2023, German Foreign Minister
Annalena Baerbock named
CCP General Secretary Xi Jinping a dictator next to
Vladimir Putin. In April 2024, German authorities arrested three German nationals for
spying for China and arranging illicit military
technology transfers. The same month, authorities arrested a suspected spy, Jian Guo, working for
Maximilian Krah. The spy was later sentenced to four years in prison. In July 2024, Germany blocked the sale of a gas turbine business to a subsidiary of
China State Shipbuilding Corporation for national security reasons. The same month, the German government announced a deal with telecommunication companies in the country to remove Chinese 5G equipment by 2029. 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." In August 2024, Germany's IT sector trade association reported that 45% of German businesses had suffered cyberattacks or
industrial espionage traced to China. In October 2024, a Chinese woman was arrested in
Leipzig on suspicion passing information on arms deliveries to Chinese intelligence. In November 2024, German authorities investigated a Chinese shipping vessel, the
Yi Peng 3, in the
Baltic Sea after it was found be in the vicinity of two severed undersea fiber-optic data cables and suspected of sabotage. In January 2025, German prosecutors indicted three German nationals for illegally obtaining information on military technology for the
Ministry of State Security (MSS). In July 2025, Germany's Foreign Office summoned China's ambassador to Germany after a
PLAN warship targeted a German aircraft, a specially configured
Beechcraft King Air 350 that was flying towards
Djibouti, with a laser during
Operation Aspides in the
Red Sea. According to
Der Spiegel, the aircraft aborted its mission and returned to Djibouti after being laser-targeted by a Chinese PLAN frigate. A German Foreign Ministry spokesperson stated the ship had been seen in the area before and “laser-targeted the aircraft with no reason or prior communication during a routine mission flight.” In November 2025, German Vice Chancellor
Lars Klingbeil visited China as part of the biannual financial dialogue talks between the two countries. During the visit, he met with Vice Premier
He Lifeng and
Wang Huning, the
chairman of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference. He also met with
Liu Haixing, the
head of the International Department of the Chinese Communist Party, in his capacity as the co-leader of the Social Democratic Party as part of the party dialogue between the SPD and the CCP established in 1984. == Political relations ==