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This article recounts in detail the history of vocational training between Germany and the People's Republic of China. It outlines the four phases of cooperation through which relations have passed and describes the obstacles to change. It also draws parallels with similar cooperation experiments between other western countries and China. The article shows how difficult it is to sow the seeds of a dual training system in a country where a school-based vocational system dominates. It also portrays the problems of China's characteristically curious combination of Confucianism and Soviet technocracy, particularly prevalent in the underdeveloped far west. These hamper the introduction of changes in the vocational training system which would give priority to ability rather than seniority and to broad training and key skills rather than narrow areas of specialisation.