Documentation Brochure - Hamburg Summit

We need Understanding
Xu Kuangdi, CFIE, and Theo Sommer, Die Zeit, discussed the protection of intellectual property rights
Hamburg´s First Mayor Ole von Beust (left) was one of the many attendees of the opening session
Xu Kuangdi, Chairman of the China
Federation of Industrial Economics
(CFIE), crowned his opening address to
the Hamburg Summit with a special
message. “The EU,” he said, “is China’s
biggest trading partner and Germany is
China’s largest trading partner in the
EU. At the same time China is the EU’s
second biggest trading partner. In 2005
the value of Sino-European trade value
reached nearly US $ 218 billion, exceeding
for the first time the value of trade
between China and the United States.
And it will soon reach US $ 300 billion.”
These figures show that economic
cooperation has progressed rapidly
since 1975, when China and the
European Economic Community
established diplomatic relations. Theo
Sommer, editor-at-large of the German
weekly newspaper Die Zeit, first visited
China with Helmut Schmidt in 1975 and
has since been a frequent visitor there.
His question was: “How we can promote
further economic relations
between Europe and China” Xu’s
answer: “We need dialogue, we need
understanding on both sides.”
To document the growing importance
of relations, Xu arrived with the largest
delegation of Chinese entrepreneurs,
politicians and academics ever to visit
Hamburg. But trade, Xu explained, was
only one aspect. The EU was also, with
companies like Airbus, Siemens, Nokia
or Volkswagen, the fourth biggest investor
in China and its largest supplier
of technology. “China and Europe are
economically inter-complementary,” Xu
said.
More and more Chinese enterprises
would also invest and set up companies
in EU countries. Xu sees three serious
obstacles here: first, the very different
legal systems from one country to the
next that Chinese entrepreneurs failed
to understand, second the high levels of
taxation compared with China, and
finally dealing with powerful trade unions.
In China, workers’ representatives
and management were friends and not
adversaries, he said.
Protection of intellectual property
rights was an important issue right
from the opening debate. Replying to
Sommer’s question how China planned
to deal with this issue in the future, Xu
offered an original explanation for the
ongoing difficulties. In traditionally
agricultural China, he said, it had been
customary to learn from neighbours.
This tradition continued to determine
the behaviour of businessmen. His
fellow-countrymen had yet to learn
that such a thing as intellectual property
existed. “We must train entrepreneurs
to abide by international laws,” he said.
“That is a major task for the Chinese
government.”