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).

[citation needed] The earliest Sino-German trade occurred overland through Siberia, and was subject to transit taxes by the Russian government.

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.

[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.

[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.

[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 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.

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.

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.

[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 General Secretary Xi Jinping's government to close the Xinjiang internment camps.

[30] 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".

[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.

[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.

[39] In September 2023, German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock named CCP General Secretary Xi Jinping a dictator next to Vladimir Putin.

[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.

"[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.

[49][50] 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.

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