Cooperation of German cities with Chinese partners and its importance for Germany’s foreign policy

Abstract

The 21st century is a time of enormous development of cities as political, economic and social actors actively shaping the global scene. Among them German cities are important actors on the international political arena, as they have extensive competences to conduct foreign policy, resulting from the federal system. Over the past years, contacts of German cities with Chinese entities have experienced a particularly dynamic development. For German cities their Chinese partners have become both cooperators in terms of administrative and economic solutions, but also more and more often collaborators on educational and cultural issues.The aim of this article is, thus, to map the connections between German and Chinese cities, and then to refer to the place which international relations conducted by sub-state entities find in foreign policy implemented at the federal level. The starting point for the analysis is the presentation of the role of city diplomacy, and then results of a survey conducted among officials representing German cities inhabited by at least 50,000 people. The author will present the conditions of bilateral cooperation between cities, key areas of cooperation, determinants of success and the most common problems. In the last part, the author will analyze the role played by cities in the German political reality. In this way, the author will indicate whether the actions towards Chinese partners are coordinated with other institutions at the regional and national level.