CHINA-GERMANY: CHINESE ESPIONAGE

The German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung reported on July 6 that Chinese agents were using fake social media profiles — already networked with several members of the German parliament — to contact German MPs and offer them money in exchange for expertise and insider knowledge. The agents would invite these MPs to China to try to pressure them for information. It claimed the spies persuade the lawmaker to visit China even as German authorities keep watch. In China, the Chinese officials have "every opportunity" to bug the parliamentarian's mobile phones and laptops, making it easier for them to put the person under pressure. The report explained how, in the summer of 2016, one unnamed German MP was offered €30,000 ($33,000 in 2016) by a "Jason Wang" to write "analyses." Just before the MP was about to leave for China, Germany's domestic intelligence agency, the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV), informed the MP about the suspicion that agents were behind the MP's discussion partner. In a second case, a staff member of a lawmaker was paid €10,000 for information, and also traveled to China, where he was put under pressure. The newspaper estimated that China's intelligence apparatus has more than one million employees.

(Comment: The report appeared just days before a dozen Chinese ministers led by Chinese Premier Li Keqiang arrived in Germany on July 9.)

Before his meeting with German Chancellor Angela Merkel on July 9, the Saturday edition of the German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ) published Chinese Premier Li Keqiang's guest contribution on rule based multilateral trade relations and Sino-German relations, without mentioning President Trump by name. 






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