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Ling*, 42, arrived in Germany with his 10-year-old daughter, Feifei* in late 2024. Their journey from Jiangsu province in eastern China to the small town of Schöppenstedt on the outskirts of Hanover took more than three months and cost thousands of pounds in payments to people smugglers and plane tickets. Starting in August, it culminated with a dangerous wintry trek across the Balkan mountains from Bosnia into the European Union – first Croatia, then Slovenia, Italy and, finally, Germany.
Ling is one of the hundreds of Chinese people who claimed asylum in Germany in 2024.
After German voters unequivocally backed anti-immigrant policies in this week’s election, which saw the far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) come in second place, a new cohort of immigrants are quietly hoping that their dreams of safety won’t be unmoored by the turbulence of European democracy.
Immigration is “one of the most important topics in the German context,” says Marcus Engler, a researcher at the German Centre for Integration and Migration Research, noting that so far Chinese people are “absent from the debate”.
Their numbers, although small, are rising.
In 2024, the number of asylum applications lodged in Germany was 250,945, a drop of about 30% compared with 2023. Chinese applications grew by more than 70% in the same time period, surpassing 1,000.
But despite Germany’s reputation among Chinese migrants as a safe haven for refugees, their chances of successfully claiming asylum seem slim. In 2024, nearly 50% of Chinese asylum seekers in Germany were rejected. According to the most recent data from France, traditionally a more restrictive country, only about 5% of Chinese asylum seekers were rejected.
The figures reflect the uncertainty about how to handle this new type of refugee – people who are fleeing the iron grip of the Chinese Communist party, rather than the instability and physical threats of war. Many people might wonder why a person living in a largely stable economy where the GDP per capita is roughly in line with the global average might choose to take so many risks to start a new life in a foreign country.
‘My heart was exhausted’
Ling started thinking about leaving China more than 20 years ago. But it wasn’t until the government’s harsh Covid-19 lockdown restrictions that he seriously considered taking action. During the pandemic he lost his job and saw his salary halve to 3,000 yuan (£326) a month as he picked up replacement work as a delivery driver. He grew increasingly uncomfortable with Feifei’s education, such as her being required to wear the red neckerchief of the Young Pioneers, the Chinese Communist party’s organisation for children aged six to 14. He was appalled when a teacher showed Feifei’s class videos portraying the US and western countries as “bullying China”.
“Education should be about teaching children how to love people around them and society, rather than promoting hatred and distorting the minds of children from an early age,” he says, adding that he felt discriminated against as a Christian.
Yang*, 35, arrived in Germany at a similar time last year. His journey took nearly a year. He spent months languishing in a migrant camp in Bosnia and Herzegovina, a country that has become a popular entry point to Europe for Chinese asylum seekers. The path to Germany culminated with a perilous 2:30am boat trip across the Sava River that divides Bosnia and Croatia. Yang and his fellow passengers – two Uyghurs from Xinjiang – prayed together before they rolled the boat into the waters. By the time he made it to Germany several weeks later, Yang felt strangely calm. “I had failed so many times that my heart was exhausted”.
“I learned on Telegram that Germany has the best policy for refugees in Europe,” said Yang, who had first tried to stay in Italy, but moved on when he couldn’t find anywhere that would shelter refugees.
Yang fled China after serving an eight-month prison sentence for comments he made on X criticising the Chinese government during the pandemic. Now he lives on the outskirts of Hanover, in an exhibition hall that has been transformed into a shelter for refugees. There are more than 300 bunk-beds in the room; Yang shares his with another refugee from China.
Crossing rivers and mountains for a new life in the west is known on Chinese social media as zouxian, or “walking the line”.
Wealthier Chinese are also abandoning their homeland for a new start in Europe. In February this year, Mou* and his family landed in Frankfurt for a transfer to Serbia. In the transfer hall, Mou called an emergency family meeting. We’re not going to Serbia, he told his three children, and we’re not going back to China either. Mou, his wife, their children and Mou’s parents approached Frankfurt airport staff and said they wanted to claim asylum. The plane tickets for the family of seven had cost more than 45,500 yuan.
Pre-Covid, the 42-year-old businessman enjoyed his life in China. He ran several food export companies, including a rougamo company that exported the popular Xi’an street food snack to the US. He owned several properties.
But the pandemic battered his business, and also his faith in the government. In 2022 he got into a fight with security officers because he refused to obey a lockdown order. He was detained for three days at the police station. Later, the police asked him to come back and “record some videos”. Mou refused to cooperate and was warned that his children’s future education would become “problematic”.
“My body was shaking when I got the call, full of fear and desperation … I immediately talked to my wife and said let’s leave,” Mou told the Guardian.
But despite Germany’s attractive reputation for asylum seekers, the country is full of uncertainty for newcomers. The AfD’s surging popularity in this month’s election means that harsher policies are likely.
Mou has some sympathy with those who want to tighten Germany’s borders. “If Germany completely opened up for immigrants, people from all over the world would flock to the country and mess it up,” he says. “But they can’t totally reject immigrants either. Real refugees who are being oppressed would have no chance … Like my case now, if I am rejected and deported, I don’t know where we’ll go next, or if we’ll have a chance of survival,” Mou says.
Most of all, the new migrants hope that anti-immigration sentiment doesn’t take aim at them. “Germany has taken care of me when I have no job and am making no contribution,” says Ling, who is living on a government handout of 700 euros (£581) a month as he awaits the outcome of his asylum application. “I hope to become a legal citizen, to work and to pay taxes. If the country needs me one day, I would contribute without hesitation”.
*Names have been changed
