But when Germany reacted by selling a minority share of one single terminal

Not even the terminal, but of terminal operations: The Chinese said “if we’re going to be frequent customers we want to have a say in scheduling etc” and that’s perfectly fair. It’s also a common.

Any actual physical infrastructure is completely off limits to foreign investment, and “foreign”, here, from the point of view of Hamburg, means “anyone who is not the city itself”.

Also did you know that Hapag-Lloyd switched alliances and is going to chum up with Maersk, now. The Hanse and the Danes working together, who would’ve thought. At this rate next thing that’s going to happen is buying up the Netherlands, much of Bremen’s harbour is already vassalised.