Research on the Evolution of China-Germany Trade Relations and Countermeasures Against Technical Measures to Trade

Abstract

As China’s most important trading partner in the European Union (EU), Germany has long accounted for more than one-third of the total China-EU trade volume. Its cooperation with China in high-end manufacturing, automotive, chemical, new energy and other fields is deeply bound to the global industrial chain. With the formal inauguration of Germany’s new Chancellor, Friedrich Merz, his policy focus has continued the “pragmatism” tone while incorporating new considerations on issues such as supply chain security, green transformation, and technological competition. This has led to the gradual emergence of differentiated demands in the technical field within the framework of stable cooperation in China-Germany trade relations. Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT), as a policy tool with strong concealment and wide-ranging impact, has become one of the core areas of the game and coordination between the two sides. Based on international trade theory and the analytical framework of technical trade barriers, this paper systematically sorts out the core orientation of the new German government’s trade policy and its impact on China-Germany trade relations, deeply analyzes the main manifestations and mechanism of action of Germany’s technical trade measures, and accordingly proposes countermeasures including deepening rule dialogue, accelerating standard alignment, strengthening industrial upgrading, and utilizing multilateral mechanisms. It aims to provide theoretical reference and policy suggestions for building a defensive technical trade measure system adapted to the new situation of China-Germany trade.