and military development involving Germany in China. He submitted the Denkschrift für Marschall Chiang Kai-shek memorandum, outlining his programme of industrialising and militarising China. He called for a small, mobile, and well-equipped force to replace the massive but under-trained army. In addition, he advocated for the army to be the "foundation of ruling power" and for military power to rest in qualitative superiority derived from qualified officers. Von Seeckt suggested that the first step toward achieving this framework was the uniform training and consolidation of the Chinese military under Chiang's command and that the entire military system must be subordinated into a centralised hierarchy. Toward that goal, von Seeckt proposed the formation of a "training brigade" to replace the German eliteheer, which would train other units, with its officer corps selected from strict military placements. In addition, with German help, China would have to build up its own defence industry because it could not rely on buying arms from abroad much longer. The first step toward efficient industrialization was the centralization of both the Chinese and the German reconstruction agencies. In January 1934, the Handelsgesellschaft für industrielle Produkte, or Hapro, was created to unify all German industrial interests in China. Hapro was nominally a private company to avoid opposition from other foreign countries. In August 1934, the Treaty for the Exchange of Chinese Raw Materials and Agricultural Products of German Industrial and Other Products was signed in which China would trade strategically important raw material for German industrial products and development. That barter agreement was to both since China was unable to secure external monetary loans because of the high budget deficit from military expenditures, and Germany could become independent of the international market for raw materials. The agreement further specified that China and Germany were equal partners. Having accomplished that important milestone in Sino-German cooperation, von Seeckt transferred his post to General Alexander von Falkenhausen and returned to Germany in March 1935, where he died the next year. H.H. Kung, the finance minister of China, and two other Chinese Kuomintang officials visited Germany in June 1937 and were received by Adolf Hitler. The Chinese delegation met Hans Georg von Mackensen on June 10. During the meeting, Kung said that Japan was not a reliable ally for Germany, as he believed that Germany had not forgotten the Japanese invasion of Tsingtao and the former German colonies in the Pacific Islands