China Info - DAAD

She wanted to know…
Out of curiosity, Jutta Ludwig started her carreer as an economist and sinologist. It has led her to serve as the
Delegate of German Industry and Commerce in Beijing.
It was three little sparks that ingnited
Jutta Ludwig’s involvement with China,
the first one lit when she was still a highschool
student in Hamburg: One of her
older brothers introduced her to a
student from China, Ms Ludwig, at that
time only decided to study economics,
got interested in the student’s home
country. Later on, a fellow student of
economics told her that she would need
additional skills for future success. And
finally, she found two books from
Mainland China on Chinese economy in
a bookstore in Hamburg: “There was so
much nonsense in it that I decided I have
to see with my own eyes,” she remembers
today. Thus, curiosity made her start a
carreer that has led her – with several
prominent stations – to taking the post
of Delegate of German Industry and
Commerce in Beijing.
Ms Ludwig was convinced from the
very beginning of her involvement with
China that one needs to master the
Chinese language to get a
comprehensive picture of the country, to
understand its people, proceedings and
politics. Therefore, after enrolling in
Hamburg University in economics in
summer 1973, she added sinology only
one term later. Nowadays, this conviction
translates into claiming that Chinese
should be taught in German primary
schools: “It is just too late to become
really proficient when you start at
university,” states Ludwig, who has
graduated from Hamburg University in
both Economics and Sinology.
Ms Ludwig herself has polished her
Chinese during a one-year stay in Taiwan.
The German Academic Exchange Service
had rejected her application to join one
of the first batches of German students
going to Beijing, so she turned to the
Missionaries of the Divine Word who
supported her application for a language
course in Xinzhu. But she felt staying
there with a lot of foreign friends kept her
from learning Chinese, so she moved to
Taibei, privately
hired teachers there
and lived with a
Chinese family:
“We’ve been
standing in the
kitchen preparing
fish-balls for the
Chinese New Year,”
she recalls with a
smile: “I have been
studying almost
day and night.”
Although her
professors for
sinology urged her
to continue her
studies in the
mainland after her
stay in Taiwan, she
decided she would
rather finish her
studies in
economics. After
graduating in both sinology and
economics, she merged both skills into a
Ph.D.-thesis on price-reforms in China
supervised by Prof. Armin Gutowski, one
of the very first counsellors to the
Chinese Economic Reform Commission.
Although she
liked the work
very much, she left
the thesis
unfinished to take
Jutta Ludwig, the post of
Delegate of German managing director
Industry and Commerce in Beijing of the Committee
on Economic
Relations with the East (Ostausschuss
der Deutschen Wirtschaft), run by the
Federation of German Industries (BDI):
“This unfinished thesis is still haunting,”
she admits. Again, China was the focus
of her work, the country was in the middle
of a transition process, economically and
politically. The organisation she worked
for was a forum for leaders of Germany’s
top enterprises: “That was a phantastic
time, we were in close co-operation with
the Federal Ministry of Economics and
even the Chancellor’s office.” She
organized high-ranking business
delegations, was a member of plenty
Jutta Ludwig, Delegate of German Industry
and Commerce in Beijing. Photo: AHK
ministers’ and Chancellors’s delegations
to China and even met China’s leader
Deng Xiaoping. A
photograph of this
encounter still rests
on the windowsill in
her office.
The interest in
what she was doing
and the joy of it has
kept the fire
burning, has kept
the mother of three
children working.
Throughout her
career, she has had
highly motivated
and motivating
superiors, she
stresses, like Otto
W o l f v o n
Amerongen at the
Federation of
German Industries
and Hans-Otto
Thierbach, at that
time member of the board of Deutsche
Bank and highly involved with the
committee’s work. Her parents and her
three elder brothers – “I have phantastic
brothers,” she beams – were a strong
backing and support for her ambitions,
and of course not to forget her husband
– “an absolutely extra-ordinary partner.”
When it comes to her mission in China,
Ms Ludwig returns to economics: “I am
here to help sustaining the common
welfare of future generations in Germany,
” she states, adding that her concept of
welfare includes a responsible handling
of social and environmental issues – a
perspective she has learnt in her six years
at the Wuppertal Institute for Climate,
Enviroment, Energy. There she
coordinated a project on sustainable
development for the community of
Shenzhen. Now, she has even found the
idea of sustainability in Chinese
economic literature, she reports, en
passant revealing that she is currently
working herself through one with the
help of her Chinese teacher. Obviously,
the curiosity still remains, as Ms Ludwig
beams: “Of course I am still learning, I’m
learning every day!”
(aha)
DAAD China Info 2/2005 23