Antonia Hmaidi
It looked like a turning point.
In August, the German Foreign Office summoned the Chinese ambassador to Germany, accusing Beijing of conducting a cyberattack against the state cartography agency. It was the first time that Germany had summoned China’s ambassador since the Tiananmen Square crackdown in 1989.
Germany has woken up to the China challenge. The current government demonstrates a new understanding and willingness to act against Chinese threats. And yet, many decisions continue to reflect a business as usual – and business first – approach. New elections planned for February are unlikely to lead to a significant course correction, even if Donald Trump will be impatient with Berlin’s meandering.
German intelligence agencies have broken with their insular and reticent tradition and are now confronting China. At a 2022 parliament hearing, German spy chiefs warned that while everyone is paying attention to Russia’s disinformation, hacking and espionage, the much greater long-term challenge comes from China. Russia represented “the storm,” they said. China is “climate change.”
Leaked data from a Chinese cyber-attack contractor confirmed this year for the first time that Chinese government contracts sustain a dangerous hacking-for-hire industry. The Chinese government collects weaknesses in code and funnels them to hackers. Before publishing the data,the domestic Verfassungsschutz intelligence agency shared the story in German media.
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