How China Seeks To Spread Its Influence In Germany

Ger­man media is report­ing that Chi­na is seek­ing to expand its influ­ence in Ger­many on mul­ti­ple lev­els, through the estab­lish­ment of board­ing schools, the recruit­ment of expa­tri­ate stu­dents, the cul­ti­va­tion of local infor­mants, deals with Ger­man pub­lish­ers, and the laun­der­ing of Chi­nese pro­pa­gan­da through local TV pro­duc­tions.  Accord­ing to an RND report:

April 28, 2021 In the past, Chi­na’s activ­i­ties in Ger­many focused on eco­nom­ic and indus­tri­al espi­onage. But by now, insid­ers report, the field of activ­i­ty has expand­ed.  It’s about skim­ming off sci­en­tists and stu­dents. In Ger­many there are at least 50,000 Chi­nese stu­dents out of 150,000 vis­it­ing Chi­nese. […] What is rel­a­tive­ly new is that the Chi­nese are also con­tact­ing Ger­mans. Accord­ing to a report by the Ger­man inter­nal intel­li­gence agency, “per­sons with high-qual­i­ty access are being recruit­ed dur­ing stays in Chi­na with the prospect of attrac­tive remuneration”. […]

In Sep­tem­ber it became known that the book retail chain Thalia had entered into a coop­er­a­tion with a Chi­nese state-owned com­pa­ny, which was allowed to stock some shelves with Chi­nese lit­er­a­ture for a fee. The books that were placed also includ­ed “Rule Chi­na”, a col­lec­tion of speech­es by Chi­nese Pres­i­dent Xi Jinping. […]

The Thalia case is joined by DRF Deutsch­land Fernse­hen Pro­duk­tions GmbH & Co. KG in Urbar (Rhineland-Palati­nate), which broad­casts the fif­teen-minute mag­a­zine “Chi­na Info” every day. Accord­ing to a report by the “Süd­deutsche Zeitung”, it will be pop­u­lat­ed with images from Chi­nese state tele­vi­sion. [Trans­lat­ed with Google Trans­late with minor edits]

Read the rest here.

The Glob­al Influ­ence Oper­a­tions Report has exten­sive­ly cov­ered China’s var­i­ous influ­ence oper­a­tions in Europe, including:

• In May, we report­ed on a study map­ping and iden­ti­fy­ing dif­fer­ences in China’s soft-pow­er poli­cies in 17 Euro­pean coun­tries, and that argues that China’s rep­u­ta­tion and influ­ence is declin­ing in 10 of these countries.

• In April, we report­ed that China’s state pro­pa­gan­da appa­ra­tus is expand­ing its influ­ence among for­eign audi­ences through adver­to­r­i­al inserts in West­ern online media outlets.

• In March, we report­ed that Chi­na tries to con­trol its inter­na­tion­al stu­dents study­ing at Scot­tish uni­ver­si­ties through stu­dent associations.

• In Jan­u­ary, we report­ed about over 230 orga­ni­za­tions deemed part of China’s overt and covert influ­ence oper­a­tions in Germany.