Following the recent arrests of two Germans suspected of espionage for China, security politician Roderich Kiesewetter (CDU) fears that many more, undiscovered cases exist. Speaking to the “Handelsblatt”, he stated that the exposed incident is merely the tip of the iceberg. Kiesewetter argued that China operates with highly targeted, long-term strategies through a broad “soft power” network in areas like culture, education, scientific research, the economy, and high-level contacts. The CDU politician warned that Germany is poorly resilient and dangerously naive concerning China’s hybrid approaches.
According to Kiesewetter, China has been increasing its hybrid warfare tactics against the West for years. These tactics encompass cyberattacks, espionage, transnational repression-which involves pressuring foreign individuals-and geoeconomic coercion, such as employing economic pressure to force political compliance. He highlighted that Germany, particularly in the fields of business and science, is a primary target. Kiesewetter reported that Beijing is attempting to steal know-how in areas such as military technology, robotics, additive manufacturing (like 3D printing), dual-use technologies, artificial intelligence, and informatics, aiming to ultimately deploy this knowledge against Germany itself.
To counter these threats, Kiesewetter demanded a significant increase in efforts focused on warning and preventing Chinese espionage, emphasizing the urgent need to build national resilience. His proposals included prohibiting certain research cooperation agreements and restricting the access of Chinese researchers to sensitive areas. Furthermore, he stressed that a fundamental change to the overall “One China” policy is mandatory. As an immediate first step, he called for the Chinese ambassador to be summoned and for the unilaterally asserted strategic partnership with China to be terminated.