Documentation Brochure - Hamburg Summit

Let us like to be Neighbours
Hamburg`s First Mayor Ole von Beust
When I grew up as a little boy in
Hamburg in the 1920s, China
was as far away as the moon tonight,”
Helmut Schmidt, recipient of the China-
Europe Friendship Award of the
Hamburg Summit 2004, told the audience
in his speech during the opening
dinner. Since then the number of people
on the planet had more than tripled, but
the Earth and the space on its surface
had not grown. “We are getting ever
closer to each other,” the former
German Chancellor concluded, expressing
a personal wish to the Chinese,
European and German guests. “Let us
understand that we are neighbours,” he
said, “and strive for good neighbourly
relations. Because the more closely we
cooperate, the greater is the benefit for
both sides.”
For the much-travelled and experienced
politician Helmut Schmidt “the
almost unbelievable economic upswing
that the People’s Republic of China has
achieved since the late 1970s [is] an
outstanding phenomenon that has
rarely occurred elsewhere in the history
of mankind.” In his view it is a miracle
that deserves “great respect from us
Europeans.” “Of course,” he told the
Chinese guests at the Hamburg Summit,
“I am well aware of the hundreds of
social problems which the enormous
economic change and economic growth
have presented to you.”
But Schmidt was confident that
Chinese politicians will be able to
solve these problems responsibly. “My
confidence is founded in the cautious
prudence of Chinese leaders that I have
observed over the past three decades,
thanks to Deng Xiaoping´s example.” So
Prime Minister Wen Jiabao´s calligraphic
entry in Hamburg´s Golden Book
he assured the Chinese visitors that “the
other world powers have no legitimation
to criticise China.”
Hamburg’s First Mayor Ole von Beust
endorsed this view in his words of
welcome to the Chinese guests. “In all
the years of cooperation, China and
Hamburg have always shared a mutual
respect for each other’s collective selfconception
and cultural identity. We
meet each other not in a lecturing mode
but in dialogue,” he said. He went on to
deal briefly with the centuries-old
tradition of relations between the
Hanseatic city and the gigantic Asian
empire. “In Hamburg, China has met
Europe not just since China’s unparalleled
rise to economic power status in the
twenty-first century but for many
generations,” Mayor von Beust said.
Relations dated back to the early
eighteenth century when the first ship
laden with tea, porcelain and silk
berthed in the Port of Hamburg.
Germany’s Economic Affairs
Minister Michael Glos, representing the
federal government explained that “we
are engaged in an increasingly intensive
dialogue. China is our most important
trading partner in the Asia-Pacific
region and, conversely, we are proud to
be China’s most important partner in
Europe.” German firms had much to
offer towards developing China, Glos
said. They did, however, expect fair
framework conditions in the Chinese
market. “The process of market opening
in China has not yet been completed,”
the minister from Berlin said. Germany’s
aim was to intensify cooperation.
That was why Glos told the
Chinese guests: “Let us work jointly to
achieve this goal.”