Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Sino-German Relations, Historiography, and Organization

  • Chapter
  • First Online:
Sino-German Encounters and Entanglements

Part of the book series: Palgrave Series in Asian German Studies ((PSAGR))

  • 465 Accesses

Abstract

This introduction addresses the three following topics. The first section provides a brief overview of the history of Sino-German relations between 1890 and 1950 through the opposing frames of antagonism and cooperation. Sino-German relations around 1900 may have been initially antagonistic, but from 1905 their relations steadily improved until World War I ended German colonialism in China. Following the war they established a strong, cooperative relationship premised on equality, which reached its peak in 1928–1938, but the relationship lacked a clear political foundation. The second section examines the historiographical landscape concerning Sino-German relations from 1890 to 1950. It reviews select monographs and edited volumes which have appeared in the last twenty years. While this research still tends to orient its focus on German colonialism, mission, trade, and diplomacy, there is also evidence of growing diversification within the field and the emergence of new topics. The third section explains the structure of this volume and presents the key arguments of the chapters in it. The topics addressed are quite diverse, ranging from politics and diplomacy, business, medical mission, pedagogy, and social theory to psychoanalysis, literature, music, and film. Adopting a transnational or global historical approach, this edited volume focuses on interactions, cross-cultural connections, bi-directional cultural flows, entanglements, and forms of hybridity in Sino-German relations.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution
Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 139.00
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 179.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info
Hardcover Book
USD 179.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Notes

  1. 1.

    Fu Pao-jen, “From the 1930s Cooperation Model to a New Perspective on Future German-Chinese Relations,” in Deutschland und China. Beiträge des Zweiten Internationalen Symposiums zur Geschichte der deutsch-chinesischen Beziehungen, ed. Kuo Heng-yü and Mechthild Leutner (Berlin: K.G. Saur Verlag, 1991), 122.

  2. 2.

    Erik Grimmer-Solem, Learning Empire. Globalization and the German Quest for World Status, 1875–1919 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019), 129–30.

  3. 3.

    Sebastian Conrad, German Colonialism. A Short History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012), 58.

  4. 4.

    Ibid.

  5. 5.

    David M. Crowe, “Sino-German Relations, 1871–1917,” in Germany and China. Transnational Encounters since the Eighteenth Century, ed. Joanne Miyang Cho and David M. Crowe (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014), 80.

  6. 6.

    Conrad, German Colonialism, 58–59.

  7. 7.

    Ibid., 61.

  8. 8.

    George Steinmetz, The Devil’s Handwriting. Precoloniality and the German Colonial State in Qingdao, Samoa, and Southwest Africa (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007), 17.

  9. 9.

    Conrad, German Colonialism, 61–62.

  10. 10.

    Mechthild Leutner and Klaus Mühlhahn, “Interkulturelle Handlungsmuster: Deutsche Wirtschaft und Mission in China in der Spätphase des Imperialismus,” in Deutsch-chinesische Beziehungen im 19. Jahrhundert, ed. Mechthild Leutner and Klaus Mühlhahn (Münster: LIT Verlag, 2001), 19.

  11. 11.

    Joanne Miyang Cho and David M. Crowe, “Introduction,” in Germany and China. Transnational Encounters since the Eighteenth Century, ed. Joanne Miyang Cho and David M. Crowe (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014), 3–4.

  12. 12.

    Conrad, German Colonialism, 82.

  13. 13.

    Crowe, “Sino-German Relations, 1871–1917,” 86.

  14. 14.

    Ibid., 85.

  15. 15.

    Lydia Gerber, “Mediating Medicine. Li Benjing, Richard Wilhelm, and the Politics of Hygiene in the German Leasehold Jiaozhou (1897–1914),” in Germany and China. Transnational Encounters since the Eighteenth Century, ed. Joanne Miyang Cho and David M. Crowe (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014), 97.

  16. 16.

    Steinmetz, The Devil’s Handwriting, 18.

  17. 17.

    Mechthild Leutner and Klaus Mühlhahn, “Die ‘Musterkolonie’: Die Perzeption des Schutzgebietes Jiaozhou in Deutschland,” in Deutschland und China. Beiträge des Zweiten Internationalen Symposiums zur Geschichte der deutsch-chinesischen Beziehungen, ed. Kuo Heng-yü and Mechthild Leutner (Berlin: K.G. Saur Verlag, 1991), 401–2.

  18. 18.

    Crowe, “Sino-German Relations, 1871–1917,” 87.

  19. 19.

    Cho and Crowe, “Introduction,” 4.

  20. 20.

    William C. Kirby, Germany and Republican China (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1981), 13.

  21. 21.

    Ibid., 16.

  22. 22.

    Ibid., 7.

  23. 23.

    Hans Werner Hess, “German in China: A Case Study in the Utility Value of Foreign Languages,” in Sino-German Relations Since 1800: Multidisciplinary Explorations, ed. Ricardo K. S. Mak and Danny S. L. Paau (Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 2000), 205.

  24. 24.

    Conrad, German Colonialism, 61.

  25. 25.

    R. G. Tiedmann, “‘Christian Civilization’ or ‘Cultural Expansion’? The German Missionary Enterprise in China, 1882–1919,” in Sino-German Relations Since 1800: Multidisciplinary Explorations, ed. Ricardo K. S. Mak and Danny S. L. Paau (Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 2000), 132.

  26. 26.

    Kirby, Germany and Republic China, 15.

  27. 27.

    Crowe, “Sino-German Relations, 1871–1917,” 89.

  28. 28.

    Ibid., 88–90.

  29. 29.

    Barbara Schmitt-Englert, Deutsche in China, 1920–1950. Alltagsleben und Veränderungen (Gossenberg: Ostasien Verlag, 2012), 43.

  30. 30.

    William Kirby, “Intercultural Contacts and International Relations: China’s Relations with Germany, the Soviet Union and the United States, 1927–1944,” in Deutschland und China. Beiträge des Zweiten Internationalen Symposiums zur Geschichte der deutsch-chinesischen Beziehungen, ed. Kuo Heng-yü and Mechthild Leutner (Berlin: K.G. Saur Verlag, 1991), 230–31.

  31. 31.

    Kirby, Germany and Republic China, 6.

  32. 32.

    Ibid., 4.

  33. 33.

    Ibid., 229.

  34. 34.

    Ibid.

  35. 35.

    Ibid., 191–92.

  36. 36.

    Ibid., 190–91.

  37. 37.

    Hess, “German in China,” 205.

  38. 38.

    Ibid.

  39. 39.

    Ding Jianhong and Li Xia, “Das ‘Deutschland-Institut’ und die deutsch-chinesischen Kulturbeziehungen,” in Politik, Wirtschaft, Kultur: Studien zu den deutsch-chinesischen Beziehungen, ed. Mechthild Leutner and comp. Klaus Mühlhahn (Münster: LIT, 1996), 314–15.

  40. 40.

    Kirby, Germany and Republic China, 204.

  41. 41.

    Ibid., 4.

  42. 42.

    Christine Swanson and David M. Crowe, “Sino-German Relations, 1918–1941,” in Germany and China. Transnational Encounters since the Eighteenth Century, ed. Joanne Miyang Cho and David M. Crowe (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014), 116.

  43. 43.

    Ibid., 119–25.

  44. 44.

    Kirby, “Intercultural Contacts and International Relations,” 232; Swanson and Crowe, “Sino-German Relations, 1918–1941,” 119–25.

  45. 45.

    Swanson and Crowe, “Sino-German Relations, 1918–1941,” 121.

  46. 46.

    Kirby, Germany and Republic China, 222–23.

  47. 47.

    Swanson and Crowe, “Sino-German Relations, 1918–1941,” 127.

  48. 48.

    Kirby, Germany and Republic China, 235–37.

  49. 49.

    Ibid., 241.

  50. 50.

    Ibid., 240–41.

  51. 51.

    Ibid., 243.

  52. 52.

    Dagmar Yü-Dembski, “Verdrängte Jahre: Einige Fragen der deutsch-chinesischen Beziehungen während des Nationalsozialismus,” in Politik, Wirtschaft, Kultur: Studien zu den deutsch-chinesischen Beziehungen, ed. Mechthild Leutner and comp. Klaus Mühlhahn (Münster: LIT, 1996), 339.

  53. 53.

    Fion Wai Long So, Germany’s Colony in China—Colonialism, Protectionism, and Development in Qingdao and Shandong, 1898–1914 (New York: Routledge, 2019).

  54. 54.

    Klaus Mühlhahn, Herrschaft und Widerstand in der “Musterkolonie” Kiautschou: Interaktionen zwischen China und Deutschland, 1897–1914 (Oldenbourg: de Gruyter, 2000); Annette Biener, Das deutsche Pachtgebiet Tsingtau in Schantung 1897–1914: Institutioneller Wandel durch Kolonisierung, ed. Wilhelm Matzat (Bonn: Wilhelm Matzat, 2001).

  55. 55.

    Steinmetz, The Devil’s Handwriting; Suzanne Marchand, German Orientalism in the Age of Empire. Religion, Race, and Scholarship (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press; Washington, DC: German Historical Institute, 2009); Grimmer-Solem, Learning Empire.

  56. 56.

    Gerber, Von Voskamps “heidnischen Treiben” und Wilhelms “höherem China”: Die Berichterstattung deutscher protestantischer Missionare aus dem deutschen Pachtgebiet Kiautschou, 1898–1914 (Hamburg: Hamburger Sinologischer Gesellschaft, 2002), 57.

  57. 57.

    Julia Stone, Chinese Basket Babies: A German Missionary Foundling Home and the Girls It Raised, 1850s–1914 (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2013).

  58. 58.

    Albert Monshan Wu, From Christ to Confucius. German Missionaries, Chinese Christians, and the Globalization of Christianity, 1860–1950 (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2016).

  59. 59.

    Shirley Ye, “Business, Water, and the Global City: Germany, Europe, and China, 1820–1950” (PhD diss., Harvard University, 2013); Susanne Kuss, Der Völkerbund und China: Technische Kooperation und deutsche Berater, 1928–34 (Münster: LIT, 2005).

  60. 60.

    Shellen Xiao Wu, Empires of Coal: Fueling China’s Entry in the Modern World Order, 1860–1920 (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2015).

  61. 61.

    Astrid Freyeisen, Shanghai und die Politik des Dritten Reiches (Würzburg: Königshausen und Neumann, 2000).

  62. 62.

    Schmitt-Englert, Deutsche in China, 1920–1950.

  63. 63.

    Guang Pan, A Study of Jewish Refugees in China (1933–1945): History, Theories and the Chinese Pattern (Singapore: Springer; Shanghai: Jiao Tong University Press, 2019).

  64. 64.

    Gao Bei, Shanghai Sanctuary. Chinese and Japanese Policy toward European Jewish Refugees during World War II (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013).

  65. 65.

    Irene Eber, Wartime Shanghai and the Jewish Refugees from Central Europe. Survival, Co-Existence, and Identity in a Multi-Ethnic City (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2012); Judith Weissbach, Exilerinnerungen deutschsprachiger Juden an Shanghai, 1938–1949 (Heidelberg: Universitätsverlag, 2017).

  66. 66.

    Marcia Reynders Ristaino, Port of Last Resort. The Diaspora Communities of Shanghai (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2001).

  67. 67.

    Mechthild Leutner and Klaus Mühlhahn, eds., Deutsch-chinesische Beziehungen im 19. Jahrhundert (Münster: LIT Verlag, 2001); Katja Levy, ed., Deutsch-chinesische Beziehungen (Münster: LIT Verlag, 2011).

  68. 68.

    The following three chapters appeared in Joanne Miyang Cho and Douglas T. McGetchin, eds., Gendered Encounters between Germany and Asia: Transnational Perspectives since 1800 (Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017). Julia Stone, “‘Rescuing’ and Raising Basket Babies: Chinese Foundling Girls, Female Infantcide, and German Missionary Gender Role Contestation (1850s–1914),” 65–84; Lydia Gerber, “From Submission to Subversion? The Aidaoyuan Boarding School for Chinese Girls in Qingdao, 1904–1914,” 111–32; Joanne Miyang Cho, “German-Jewish Women in Wartime Shanghai and Their Encounters with the Chinese,” 171–91.

  69. 69.

    The following four chapters appeared in Qinna Shen and Martin Rosenstock, Beyond Alterity: German Encounters with Modern East Asia (2014). Weijia Li, “Otherness in Solidarity: Collaboration between Chinese and German Left-Wing Activists in the Weimar Republic,” 73–93; Martin Rosenstock, “China Past, China Present: The Boxer Rebellion in Gerhard Seyfried’s Yellow Wind (2008),” 115–33; Cynthia Walk, “Anna Wong and Weimar Cinema: Orientalism in Postcolonial Germany,” 137–67; Chinyun Lee and Lucie Olivová, “Hairnet Manufacturing in Vysočina and Shandong 1890–1939: An Early Globalizing Home Industry,” 217–39.

  70. 70.

    The following four chapters appeared in Joanne Miyang Cho, ed., Transnational Encounters between Germany and East Asia since 1900 (New York: Routledge, 2018). Julia Stone, “One family, two systems: how German missionary mothers and their Chinese ‘daughters’ challenged the late Qing Confucian family model,” 23–44; Lydia Gerber, “Working with disaster: Weimar Mission response to the Boxer catastrophe (1900–1901),” 45–61; Shambhavi Prakash, “Representations of Jewish exile and models of memory in Shanghai Ghetto and Exil Shanghai,” 62–81; Keumjae Park, “Max Weber and East Asia development,” 145–61.

  71. 71.

    Mak and Paau, Sino-German Relations Since 1800; Cho and Crowe, Germany and China.

Bibliography

  • Bei, Gao. Shanghai Sanctuary. Chinese and Japanese Policy toward European Jewish Refugees during World War II. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013.

    Google Scholar 

  • Beiner, Annette. Das deutsche Pachtgebiet Tsingtau in Schantung 1897–1914: Institutioneller Wandel durch Kolonisierung. Bonn: Wilhelm Matzat, 2001.

    Google Scholar 

  • Cho, Joanne Miyang, ed. Transnational Encounters between Germany and East Asia since 1900. New York: Routledge, 2018.

    Google Scholar 

  • Cho, Joanne Miyang, and David Crowe, eds. Germany and China: Transnational Encounters since 1800. New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2014.

    Google Scholar 

  • Cho, Joanne Miyang, and Douglas T. McGetchin, eds. Gendered Encounters between Germany and Asia: Transnational Perspectives since 1800. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017.

    Google Scholar 

  • Conrad, Sebastian. German Colonialism. A Short History. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012.

    Google Scholar 

  • Eber, Irene. Wartime Shanghai and the Jewish Refugees from Central Europe. Survival, Co-Existence, and Identity in a Multi-Ethnic City. Berlin: De Gruyter, 2012.

    Google Scholar 

  • Freyeisen, Astrid. Shanghai und die Politik des Dritten Reiches. Würzburg: Königshausen und Neumann, 2000.

    Google Scholar 

  • Grimmer-Solem, Erik. Learning Empire. Globalization and the German Quest for World Status, 1875–1919. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Kirby, William C. Germany and Republican China. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1981,

    Google Scholar 

  • Kuo, Heng-yü, and Mechthild Leutner, eds. Deutschland und China. Beiträge des Zweiten Internationalen Symposiums zur Geschichte der deutsch-chinesischen Beziehungen (Berlin: K.G. Saur Verlag, 1991).

    Google Scholar 

  • Kuss, Susanne. Der Völkerbund und China: Technische Kooperation und deutsche Berater, 1928–34. Münster: LIT, 2005.

    Google Scholar 

  • Leutner, Mechthild, ed. Politik, Wirtschaft, Kultur: Studien zu den deutsch-chinesischen Beziehungen, compiled by Klaus Mühlhahn. Münster: LIT, 1996.

    Google Scholar 

  • Leutner, Mechthild, and Klaus Mühlhahn, eds. Deutsch-chinesische Beziehungen im 19. Jahrhundert. Münster: LIT Verlag, 2001.

    Google Scholar 

  • Levy, Katja, ed. Deutsch-chinesische Beziehungen. Münster: LIT Verlag, 2011.

    Google Scholar 

  • Mak, Richardo K. S., and Danny S. L. Paau, eds. Sino-German Relations Since 1800: Multidisciplinary Explorations. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 2000.

    Google Scholar 

  • Marchand, Suzanne L. German Orientalism in the Age of Empire. Religion, Race, and Scholarship. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press; Washington, DC: German Historical Institute, 2009.

    Google Scholar 

  • Mühlhahn, Klaus. Herrschaft und Widerstand in der “Musterkolonie” Kiautschou: Interaktionen zwischen China und Deutschland, 1897–1914. Oldenbourg: de Gruyter, 2000.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Pan, Guang. A Study of Jewish Refugees in China (1933–1945): History, Theories and the Chinese Pattern. Singapore: Springer; Shanghai: Jiao Tong University Press, 2019.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ristaino, Marcia Reynders. Port of Last Resort. The Diaspora Communities of Shanghai. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2001.

    Google Scholar 

  • Schmitt-Englert, Barbara. Deutsche in China, 1920–1950. Alltagsleben und Veränderungen. Gossenberg: Ostasien Verlag, 2012.

    Google Scholar 

  • Shen, Qinna, and Martin Rosenstock, eds. Beyond Alterity: German Encounters with Modern East Asia. New York: Berghahn Books, 2014.

    Google Scholar 

  • So, Fion Wai Long. Germany’s Colony in China—Colonialism, Protectionism, and Development in Qingdao and Shandong, 1898–1914. New York: Routledge, 2019.

    Google Scholar 

  • Steinmetz, George. The Devil’s Handwriting. Precoloniality and the German Colonial State in Qingdao, Samoa, and Southwest Africa. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Stone, Julia. Chinese Basket Babies: A German Missionary Foundling Home and the Girls It Raised, 1850s–1914. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2013.

    Google Scholar 

  • Weissbach, Judith. Exilerinnerungen deutschsprachiger Juden an Shanghai, 1938–1949. Heidelberg: Universitätsverlag, 2017.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wu, Albert Monshan. From Christ to Confucius. German Missionaries, Chinese Christians, and the Globalization of Christianity, 1860–1950. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2016.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wu, Shellen Xiao. Empires of Coal: Fueling China’s Entry in the Modern World Order, 1860–1920. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2015.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Ye, Shirley. “Business, Water, and the Global City: Germany, Europe, and China, 1820–1950.” PhD diss., Harvard University, 2013.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of History, William Paterson University of New Jersey, Wayne, NJ, USA

    Joanne Miyang Cho

Authors
  1. Joanne Miyang Cho
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Joanne Miyang Cho .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of History, William Paterson University of New Jersey, Wayne, NJ, USA

    Joanne Miyang Cho

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2021 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG

About this chapter

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this chapter

Cho, J.M. (2021). Sino-German Relations, Historiography, and Organization. In: Cho, J.M. (eds) Sino-German Encounters and Entanglements. Palgrave Series in Asian German Studies. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-73391-9_1

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-73391-9_1

  • Published:

  • Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-030-73390-2

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-030-73391-9

  • eBook Packages: HistoryHistory (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation