Chinese now largest foreign-student nationality

Chinese students have become the largest foreign-student group in Germany, the German ambassador to China said on May 7.

Michael Scaefer said during a dialogue with Chinese youths that the Chinese student group is now larger even than student groups from neighboring countries like France.

The 64-year-old ambassador said the relationship between the two countries “has never been better at this point of time.”

"The trade (between China and Germany) was 60 billion euros ($79 billion) six years ago when I came," said Schaefer, who is leaving China this summer. "Today it's 150 billion euros, irrespective of the financial and economic crisis the Europe has been going through."

The topics covered by the ambassador and the 40 youths — college students from 10 universities in Beijing — included not only the Euro crisis, food quality and energy conservation, but also German literature, college education and professional soccer.

The dialogue, held at the German Embassy in Beijing, was one of the "Dialogue with the World" events sponsored by the All-China Youth Federation, and organized by China Youth Daily and the China University Media Union.