China and Germany: a new type of great power relations （Jiang Shixue）

German Chancellor Angela Merkel's seventh visit to China from July 5 to 8, 2014, has not only offered her a chance to learn how to cook kung pao chicken, a traditional Chinese dish, but also upgraded Germany-China relations one step further. So far, no leader of any foreign country has visited China more often than Merkel.

One of the fancy buzzwords in China's foreign policy vocabulary these days is "New Type Great Power Relations" (NTGPR). According to Chinese President Xi Jinping's explanation to President Obama when they met in early June 2013, in California, NTGPR means "no conflict", "no confrontation", "mutual respect" and "cooperation toward win-win results".

READ: Expectations from Merkel's 7th China trip

China's desire to have a NTGPR with the United States is urgent and understandable. It was reported that, after some hesitation, the United States agreed to accept the notion of NTGPR, but has only respected it in words, not in deeds. Therefore, some say that so far only China and Russia have established the NTGPR.

Germany is believed to be "too big for Europe and too small for the world". No matter whether this observation is right or wrong, there is no doubt Germany is a major power, except in one aspect: It is not a permanent member of the UN Security Council.

So Germany's relationship with China can be considered as a relationship between major powers. And, thanks to their joint efforts, the two nations have also established a NTGPR. This conclusion can be supported by the following facts:

First, visits between the leaders of the two nations are frequent. It is well known that Chancellor Merkel and Wen Jiabao, China's former premier, nurtured very close personal ties, and this type of relationship between her and Li Keqiang, Wen's successor, is emerging. As a matter of fact, Merkel was first foreign leader to congratulate Li on his appointment as Chinese premier in March 2013, and Germany was among the first places Li visited in May 2013 after he became Chinese government leader. During his visit, Li and Merkel spent seven hours together. Merkel even devoted some time on Sunday (May 26) to meet the visiting Chinese leader at a closed-door meeting in her own office.

Second, economic relations between China and Germany are developing very rapidly. In 2002, China surpassed Japan as Germany's largest trade partner in Asia. According to China's calculations, bilateral trade between the two partners totaled US$161.6 billion in 2013, accounting for roughly 30 percent of the total China-EU trade. That is to say, each day more than US$400 million worth of goods were traded between the two partners.

Bilateral investment has become another win-win field of cooperation. China's huge market had attracted US$21.8 billion of German investment by the end of 2013. Chinese investment in Germany is much lower, almost US$4 billion by 2013, but is growing steadily. The Chinese company Sanyi's acquisition of Putzmeister, a leading German machinery producer, for 324 million euros (US$427.4 million), was a headline in international business news.

Third, cooperation and exchanges in other areas are also flourishing. There are now more than sixty official mechanisms for exchanges and dialogues between China and Germany, including inter-governmental consultations. It was reported that Germany has established inter-governmental consultations with very few countries in the world. This is also the first dialogue China has set up with a major world power.

The Goethe Institute was one of the earliest foreign institutions engaged in cultural activities in China, and China has established more than ten Confucius Institutes in Germany offering Chinese language lessons. Furthermore, at present there are more than 70 flights each week linking more than ten cities in the two countries, carrying Chinese and German tourists, business people, students, scholars and others.

Germany's close ties with China have been described as "special relations" by the European Council on Foreign Relations, a European thinktank. Whether the relationship between China and Germany is "special" or not, the truth is that during President Xi Jinping's official visit to Germany in March 2014, the two nations agreed to upgrade their existing ties to what is called an Overall Strategic Partnership (OSP), the highest level of bilateral relations in the world today.

In order to make the NTGPR or the OSP more tangible and meaningful, it is imperative for the two sides to deepen both political trust and mutual understanding.

Political trust entails respect for each other's "red line" of national interests. Tibet is one of the "red lines" for China. We should not forget the set-back of Germany's relations with China after Merkel met with the Dalai Lama in Berlin on September 23, 2007. It is encouraging to see that since then Germany has respected China's stance on Tibet and Taiwan.

Indeed, China and Germany have different political systems and it is totally impossible for them to abandon their own system and adopt the other. But both need to recognize the different understanding of such issues as democracy, freedom and human rights. After all, as Xi once said, only the person wearing the shoes knows whether the shoes are comfortable or not.

Political trust is closely linked to mutual understanding. Lack of deep mutual understanding often results in misperceptions and wrong judgments. Sadly, despite China's efforts to make itself known to the outside world through Confucius Institutes, China Daily, CCTV News and other ways, its image in the minds of many Germans is not as good as it should be. According to "The Country Ratings Poll" of 24 nations, conducted for BBC World Service by the international polling firm GlobeScan and the Program on International Policy Attitudes at the University of Maryland, among 24,542 people around the world between December 2013 and April 2014, perceptions of China in surveyed African and Latin American countries were mostly positive. But In the EU countries, Germans have become increasingly negative towards China, with 76 percent perceiving it negatively. This is up nine points since 2013 and is Germany's most unfavorable rating of China since 2005.

Working for a youth exchange program recently between China and Germany, I was surprised to learn that almost none of the ten-plus bright German young professionals in the team knew that there are nine political parties in China and the Communist Party of China is only one of them. Lack of understanding about China is probably one of the reasons why Germans do not have a fair perception of China in the BBC's country rating poll.

http://www.china.org.cn/opinion/2014-07/09/content_32892305.htm

（Contact Jiang Shixue：jiangsx@cass.org.cn）