It means the sport's Asian powerhouse is three-quarters of the way towards a third successive clean sweep of Olympic titles.

The nation has now won 22 of the last 23 available gold medals and has won every women's event held since South Korea claimed the inaugural doubles crown at Seoul 1988.

Germany had already exceeded expectations by guaranteeing their first women's medal in Olympic table tennis history, and today was always likely to prove a match too far.

China's team consisted of women's singles gold and silver medallists Ding Ning and Li Xiaoxia as well as Liu Shiwen, who was omitted for the singles despite being the world's number one ranked player.

Li began proceeding by sweeping aside Han Ying 11-9, 11-3, 11-7 in the opening match.

Liu then proved similarly comfortable against Petrisse Solja 11-3, 11-5, 11-4.

Ding then combined with Liu to win the deciding doubles 11-6, 11-5, 9-11, 11-7 over Solja and Shan Xiaona.

"We are a team, so we do everything together, we trust each other so we can win all the games," said Li.

Liu added: "It's our dream for our homeland to win an Olympic Games gold medal, our dream."

Japan swept aside Singapore 3-1 to claim the bronze medal.

Their triumphant team included Mima Ito, who, at 15 years and 300 days, became the youngest ever Olympic table tennis medallist.

She was joined by more established team-mates Ai Fukuhara and Kasumi Ishikawa.