In the course of the last twenty plus years the intensity of economic exchange between China and Germany has increased dramatically. This development was triggered off most of all by the economic policy changes introduced by Deng Xiaoping in 1978. Since then, China has freed itself from its former self-imposed isolation and gradually integrated with the world economy. The market-oriented transformation process initiated in China in the late seventies created the preconditions for the resumption of economic contacts that had been largely stagnant in the preceding years. The gradual establishment of a market-based economic framework has step-by-step contributed to an economic environment that has allowed economic actors to exploit the comparative advantages of the economies concerned and enlarge the scope of labor division with China.