The Chinese national ice hockey team for men will definitely start at the Olympic Winter Games in Beijing and thus also meet the German team.
The world association IIHF announced after a meeting on Tuesday: "The council confirmed that it will uphold the decision of the IIHF Congress 2018 to grant the Chinese men's national team a qualification place for the Olympic Games in 2022".
Recently there had been discussions about the extent to which participation by the clearly inferior hosts actually made sense.
The Chinese club Kunlun HC, which has also played in the Continental Hockey League for a number of years, had recently only just lost two games against Russian clubs and raised hopes that China will not be completely without a chance at the winter games.
In Group A, China will meet Canada and the USA in addition to Germany, who finished second in the Olympics.
The team has several North American-born players who have acquired Chinese citizenship on their roster.