70 Years of Diplomatic Relations between Denmark and China
From Poul Hartling to panda diplomacy — Beijing Postcards team were so honored to be asked to create a display showcasing the history of Danish-Chinese relations to celebrate their 70th Anniversary of diplomatic relations!
It was quite a challenge to get access to relevant archival material, not least during these peculiar times, but we got the exhibition done, even though we only had just around a month to finish. It was a great feeling of accomplishment for our whole team.
Below are some of the pictures for the exhibition.
The Danish Asiatic Company traded in China from 1732 to 1844. This picture is a painting from the 1780s, portraying the Chinese merchant Chowqua’s workshop. The three letters D.A.C. on top of the boxes in the middle of the picture are short for Danish Asiatic Company. In the very back of the picture, a Chinese and a Danish bookkeeper – sitting side by side – are making sure that everything is packed and paid.
Former Danish Prime Minister Poul Hartling did not only meet with then Premier Zhou Enlai. He is in fact the only Danish Head of Government to meet Chairman Mao Zedong. In 1974, when the meeting took place, Mao had not been seen publicly for some time. This created rumours regarding the Chairman’s health, which Hartling’s visit helped disperse. After the meeting, Hartling stated that he had a discussion with Mao Zedong on a “very high intellectual level”.
The magnificent products of China were immensely popular in Denmark and sparked the imagination of the famous writer Hans Christian Andersen. “The emperor’s palace was the most beautiful in the world. It was built entirely of porcelain, and was very costly [...]. Indeed, everything in the emperor’s garden was remarkable, and it extended so far that the gardener himself did not know where it ended.” - The Nightingale
“Even though the architect is not Chinese, the proposal demonstrates a clear understanding of traditional Chinese architecture.” - Liang Sicheng
The Danish architect V.Leth-Møller designed the largest library in China, completed in 1931. The building was described by the famous Chinese architect Liang Sicheng as an important step towards the development of a Chinese identity in modern architecture.
In 1937, a Dane named Bernhard Arp Sindberg saved the lives of thousands of Chinese by granting them access to the FLSmidth factory in Nanjing, where he was working during the Japanese occupation. Sindberg died in 1983, and his story was not widely known in Denmark until a team of Chinese researchers contacted his sister in the Danish city of Aarhus in order to learn more about this unsung hero.
The Danish diplomat, merchant and explorer Eberhard Isbrand Ides visited China with a Russian delegation in the 1680s. Ides was one of the first to describe the Gobi Desert of Western China and the Great Wall to Europeans. More than 300 hundred years after his travels, Denmark officially opened a Consulate General in Chongqing in 2005, covering provinces and autonomous regions in Western China.
“Cron Printz Christian” was the first merchant ship that sailed from Denmark to Guangzhou. It left on 25 October, 1730 and arrived in China on 5 August, 1731. 11 people died on the strenuous journey, but the vessel successfully brought home tea, spices, porcelain and silk from China. We can find mentioning of other ships like “Fortuna” that allegedly reached China as early as 1674, but Cron Printz Christian was the first official merchant ship to reach Guangzhou.
2020 marks the 20-year anniversary of the Danish Chamber of Commerce in China’s registration at the Ministry of Civil Affairs. The original Danish Chamber of Commerce was established in Shanghai in 1931 in the premises of the East Asiatic Company.
In 1863, the Danish merchant Kierulff established the first licensed shop carrying Western goods in Beijing.