Lecture at the China Conference on 24.10.2024 in Berlin
Good morning to everyone! My name is Michael Leh, I am a German journalist here in Berlin and also a member of the board of the International Society for Human Rights (ISHR). I visited Taiwan for the first time in 2002 and I was last in Taipei in July 2022 together with Nicola Beer (FDP), the then Vice President of the European Parliament – we were there shortly before Nancy Pelosi’s visit.
Tienchi had left it up to me to decide what I would talk about today, and I chose the topic of “Chinese networks and espionage in Germany”. I was inspired by the recently published book by journalist Markus Frenzel entitled “China Leaks – Peking’s Secret Network in Germany”
In ten minutes, I can of course only talk about an excerpt, a few highlights from this major topic. I want to pick out some of the things that have a special connection to Taiwan and the situation of human rights groups and dissidents from China.
Since our program for tomorrow also includes a trip to the large Chinese embassy at Jannowitzbrücke, I would like to address a practical point right away. I myself have often spoken at demonstrations in front of the Chinese embassy and have also seen how some of the speakers there read their speeches from their cell phones. I therefore quote the following from page 339 of Frenzel’s book:
“Bundeswehr officers are now being briefed on how to behave when they have to attend appointments at or in the immediate vicinity of the Chinese Consulate General in Hamburg. Because the military officers are apparently no longer even safe on the streets of Germany’s second largest city from being stalked by the services from the Middle Kingdom. “We were recommended a specific route past the Chinese consulate,” reports a general, ”and we were told at which exact point we should switch off our cell phones and where we should switch them on again.” German security experts had discovered that the Chinese were able to connect to electronic devices such as cell phones at special points. It is apparently sufficient if the Bluetooth function or near-field communication (NFC) is switched on – i.e. the option to make contactless payments, for example.” Another quote follows: ‘It’s not a problem for them,’ said the senior officer, ”they are very active in terms of intelligence.” End quote –
At this point, I also remembered how the Russian secret service managed to intercept a telephone conference of senior German air force officers via an unsecured telephone connection in Singapore in February. The recording of the conversation by the Russians – which was about a possible German delivery of Taurus cruise missiles to Ukraine – was made possible by an individual application error because the connection to Singapore was not secured or encrypted, it was said. Details were still being examined. –
I mention this because I assume that what the Russians can do technically, the Chinese can probably do too. I wouldn’t be surprised if there were as many antennas and satellite dishes on the roof of the huge Chinese embassy as there are on the roof of the Russian embassy. You just can’t see it from the street below.
In any case, incidents like these should also remind us to be careful. Especially people from or in the People’s Republic of China can be put under particular pressure or blackmailed by secretly recorded telephone conversations. In his book, Frenzel also describes examples of how the Chinese secret service has even unleashed downright telephone terror against individuals.
As I’m not particularly familiar with technical issues, I contacted the organization Reporters Without Borders the day before yesterday.
to find out more about the mobile phone problem. “Reporters Without Borders” has very good knowledge about this because the organization deals a lot with the protection of journalists in dictatorships or who report from dictatorships or autocratically governed countries.
When I asked about the protection of cell phones and the risks they pose, particularly in the vicinity of certain embassies, I was told:
Quote – “It is of course always better not to have any technical devices with you at demonstrations. But everyone has to decide for themselves whether this is practicable in each individual case. The most obvious danger for mobile phones is an IMSI catcher, which is a fake mobile station that all cell phones in the area dial into. The IMSI catcher can then copy the IMSI of everyone in the area. This is a uniquely identifying number on the SIM card, and text messages and phone calls can be intercepted during this period. (…) You should therefore always use end-to-end encrypted messengers such as Signal. Infection with spyware via mobile communications is also conceivable, e.g. via IMSI Catcher. However, this would be a much more complicated attack and would probably not be carried out across the board with all participants in a rally. End of quote.
You can easily find an “IMSI catcher” on the Internet, e.g., on Wikipedia.
I would therefore recommend that anyone going to the Chinese embassy tomorrow should switch off their cell phones for safety’s sake or not use them for communication unless it is encrypted.
Reinhard Bütikofer was also a victim of Chinese computer attacks when he was still a Member of the European Parliament. In May 2024, the BILD newspaper reported, quote:
“Beijing had thousands of Western civil servants, members of parliament, journalists and academics attacked and spied on by a state hacker group for years. Including at least 400 members of parliament.”
Since 2021, the American FBI has been investigating the mass spying by a hacker group attributed to the China Stasi with the name “Advanced Persistent Threat 31” – APT31 for short – BILD further reported.
Seven hackers have been charged in the USA. The FBI had already informed the countries of the affected politicians in 2022, including Germany, explained Bütikofer. But German authorities had kept this to themselves out of cowardice in order to sweep the espionage affair under the carpet, he complained.
It was only when the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance for China (IPAC), to which most of the victims belonged, made inquiries that information was obtained, but only from the FBI.
In addition to other MEPs, at least one other German MEP was affected by the hacker attacks, namely Engin Eroglu from the Free Voters.
As the “Süddeutsche Zeitung” reported, the hacker attack on the politicians used fake emails with tracking links that were activated when someone opened the emails. The hackers would have tried to obtain IP addresses, browser types and information about the operating system, which could then have been used to launch further attacks. The first signs of the attack were that the computers and cell phones suddenly became slower and in some cases it was no longer possible to send emails.
I would also like to point out that Reporters Without Borders has had an office in Taipei for some time, and I met its director Cédric Alviani there in 2019 – he is the East Asia Bureau director – and I mention him specifically because he made a very good impression on me. He was born in France and has been in Taiwan and East Asia for a long time. Cedric Alviani is very knowledgeable and is also very familiar with the situation in Hong Kong. You can easily find the address of Reporters Without Borders in Taipei on the Internet.
Now a bit about the notorious so-called “united front”. I’m sure everyone here knows what is meant by this. The Communist Party’s united front strategy dates back to Lenin and was further developed in China in the early 20th century. It serves to influence the CCP beyond the party in the narrower sense. Mao already emphasized its importance, as did Xi Jinping.
And that brings me back to the Chinese embassy in Berlin and the Chinese restaurant diagonally opposite it on Jannowitzbrücke called “Ming Dynasty.” Markus Frenzel devotes almost seven pages to it in his book. Because, and I quote: “According to our list, another important person in the United Front network in Germany is Chen Yuhua”. (end of quote).
The lady is the boss of the “Ming Dynasty” restaurant. This, according to Frenzel, “is considered one of the best Chinese restaurants in the capital, but also one of the most closely intertwined with the communist regime.” (end of quote).
According to Frenzel, Chen Yuhua was appointed “Vice President of the German Association for the Peaceful Reunification of China, an organization from the apparatus of the United Front.” – End quote –
Senior CP officials meet Chen Yuhua in the restaurant during visits to Germany, and even former Prime Minister Li Keqiang made time for her during his visit to Berlin in 2014. She discusses matters with the Chinese ambassador and senior Chinese officials as a matter of course. For more than ten years, the Chinese woman has also played a special role in the security apparatus of the People’s Republic. Since 2012, she has acted as a liaison for Chinese authorities in Germany, as – in quotation marks – an “honorary consular protection officer”.
Normal German guests who eat Peking duck in the restaurant will certainly know nothing about any of this.
Frenzel writes: “Even the (German) security services know next to nothing about the clandestine network in Germany, which includes restaurant chefs, entrepreneurs and students”. (end of quote). Chen Yuhua did not answer a list of questions from Frenzel and his journalistic colleagues.
A word about the embassy: Former German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder, the “friend” of war criminal Vladimir Putin, also goes in and out of the embassy. As he has done many times before, he has just celebrated the national holiday of the People’s Republic in the embassy. In her important book published in 2020, “Hidden Hand. Exposing how the Chinese Communist Party is Reshaping the World” (German title: ‘Die lautlose Eroberung – Wie China westliche Demokratien unterwandert und die Welt neu ordnet’), Mareike Ohlberg and Clive Hamilton write in the – unfortunately short – chapter ‘China’s Friends in Germany’ that Schröder was appointed ‘Advisor to the Chinese Foreign Ministry’ after the end of his term as Federal Chancellor.
I don’t know whether he officially still is and whether he still gets paid for it, but I wouldn’t be surprised.
Ohlberg and Hamilton also mention that in the fall of 2001, before a visit to China, Schröder told German media that he was – quote – “tired of bothering the Chinese side with lists of political prisoners” (end quote). Schröder had also campaigned – together with the then French President Chirac – for an end to the EU arms embargo on China, which was imposed after the Tiananmen massacre. Fortunately, neither of them were able to get their way.
As a German, I would like to take this opportunity to tell you that I am ashamed of and condemn the behavior of such a former German Chancellor. Just as I do of course for his attitude towards Russia.
Former Chancellor Merkel and China is also a separate chapter. Frenzel recalls that Merkel personally opened one of the infamous Confucius Institutes in Stralsund in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania.
Quote: “In 2016, the then German Chancellor Angela Merkel had put on a red blazer to match the color of the flag of the People’s Republic of China. Smiling ecstatically, she stood at the ceremony next to the then Chinese ambassador Shi Mingde and next to Xu Lin, a representative of the Ministry of Education of the People’s Republic”. End quote.
The same Xu Lin had angrily collected program booklets at a conference in Portugal a year and a half earlier when she discovered an advertisement for a Taiwanese foundation.
There is much more to mention, but I will only briefly mention the warnings from the German intelligence services about China’s aggressive espionage activities in Germany. I mention the names of politicians such as Rudolf Scharping, the former Minister of Defense, who has been doing business in China for a long time. Or Hans-Peter Friedrich from the CSU, who is chairman of the German-Chinese parliamentary group in the Bundestag and who declared on Deutschlandfunk radio in April 2021 that China is not a dictatorship. I mention the opportunism of many German sinologists, including self-censorship.
In a recent study, the German Institute for International and Security Affairs (Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik) rightly stated that there has not yet been a “turning point” in German China policy.
This is an alarming finding, particularly in view of the ever closer cooperation between Russia and China.
For reasons of time, I would like to conclude with these words.
Thank you very much for your attention.
中國在德國的間諜活動猖獗
雷米夏Michael Leh是居住在柏林的自由記者，他在演講中，舉出一位記者作家弗倫澤爾Markus Frenzel 的一本最新著作《中國洩密——北京在德國的秘密網絡》“China Leaks – Peking’s Secret Network in Germany”。這本書相當詳盡地描述了中國在德國的間諜活動。
德國軍方特別謹慎，若到中國使館、領館去會談，他們都會把手機關掉，以免被中方探秘，因為中國有技術能侵入個人手機，竊取芯片上的信息。
雷米夏說「中國大使館巨大的屋頂上有與俄羅斯大使館屋頂上一樣多的天線和衛星天線」，所以他們能偵測到訪客，甚至在使館前示威人群手機中的信息。
最明顯的危險是 IMSI 捕獲器，它是一個假移動站，它可以複製該區域中每個人的 IMSI（SIM卡上的識別號碼）。明天我們到中國大使館前示威抗議，大家最好把手機關掉。
萊因哈德·比蒂科夫（又名包睿翰Reinhard Bütikofer）在擔任歐洲議會議員時，也是中國電腦攻擊的受害者。 2024 年 5 月，《圖片報》報導：「多年來，北京對數千名西方公務員、議員、記者和學者進行黑客攻擊和監視。其中包括至少 400 名議會議員。」
根據《圖片報》進一步報道， 自 2021 年以來，美國聯邦調查局一直在調查中國黑客組織發起的大規模間諜活動，該組織的名稱為「高級持續威脅 31」（簡稱 APT31）。
德國前總理格哈德·施羅德也出入中國使館。施羅德在聯邦總理任期結束後被任命為「中國外交部顧問」。雷米夏說：「身為一個德國人，我對這樣一位德國前總理的行為感到羞恥和譴責。」
雷米夏還提到了一些政治家的名字，例如長期在中國做生意的前國防部長魯道夫·沙爾平（Rudolf Scharping），或是來自基社盟的漢斯-彼得·弗里德里希（Hans-Peter Friedrich），他是聯邦議院德中議會團體的主席，他於 2021 年 4 月在 Deutschlandfunk 德意志電台節目上，宣稱中國不是一個獨裁國家。另外還有許多德國漢學家，都是機會主義者，他們進行自我審查，不敢對中國發表批評的聲音。
歐洲之聲編譯，此為縮減版
