Germany’s China City no more: how failed plans for Duisburg reflect Europe’s changing view of Beijing
- Long a champion of co-operation with China, Duisburg has abandoned its partnerships there amid growing scepticism in the European Union towards Beijing
Trains laden with containers of clothes and solar panels straight from China still trundle into the station here about five times a day, but other plans to forge links between this German city and Beijing have ground to a halt.
Duisburg’s aspirations of using Chinese tech giant Huawei Technologies to modernise its administration, schools and traffic systems are on ice. Construction of a Chinese business hub on the Rhine River has been abandoned, and embarrassment hangs in the air.
Local officials who not long ago touted Duisburg as Germany’s “China City” say that’s not a tagline they want to use any more.
“Public opinion has changed, political opinion has changed,” says Markus Teuber, the China commissioner for Duisburg, the sole German city to have such a post.
The shift in this western German city of 500,000 mirrors a broader rethink in Europe on relations with Beijing.
Trade continues to flow – China remains the 27-nation European Union’s top trading partner. Yet the EU has inched closer to Washington’s sceptical view of Beijing, a trend the United States expects to continue despite a Chinese “charm offensive”, according to US military documents leaked on the group-chat platform Discord.
