8 West-German – Chinese Trade Experiences in Historical Perspective

Nearly 30 years on from its first formulation, the contact zone paradigm is still being debated and refined as its first formulator, Mary Louise Pratt, dialogues with her most constructive critics. Though originally proposed as a research tool in the field of literacy and literary theories, it has proved versatile, thought-provoking and generally popular in many other walks of the humanities, and indeed wherever the notion of “culture” is amenable to problemanalysis (Hong 2001, 259–83; Giffard 2016, 29–41). Without any claim to exhaustiveness in what is potentially an infinite topic, my chapter sets out to assess the contact zone paradigm in a field where it has not yet been seriously applied: economic history in its broadest sense. I will attempt this by means of a case study that dates back to the post-colonial era, but which I will try to frame in a longer-term analysis: the negotiations between the Federal Republic of Germany and the People’s Republic of China in the years following 1949, their aim being to promote and regulate trade between the two countries, despite the geopolitical impediments and the unfavourable ideological climate caused by the Cold War.