China-Germany space partnership seeks science and diplomacy

Joint Sino-German space research will benefit both countries, just as space collaboration helped to thaw relations between former cold warriors, according to Germany’s Aerospace Centre DLR.

Speaking to Research Europe after the successful docking of two Chinese unmanned spacecraft last week, Andreas Schütz, a DLR spokesman, described the event as having global significance. “Space is one of the vehicles for bringing countries together after the cold war so this is very significant,” he said.