China accuses Germany of "anti-Chinese manipulation"
The German government accuses China of being behind a cyberattack on a federal agency. Berlin has summoned the Chinese ambassador. Beijing is now furious. Germany should abandon the "Cold War mindset."
China has rejected accusations by the German government of a targeted cyberattack. "We strongly reject this deliberate anti-Chinese political manipulation," a spokesperson for the Foreign Ministry in Beijing said.
For some time, certain politicians and media in the West have repeatedly spread unfounded or even deliberately fabricated information. China has always opposed cyberattacks of any kind, the spokesperson said. The country is itself one of the main victims of such attacks. Germany should adopt a "responsible attitude" and abandon the "Cold War mindset."
A spokesperson for the Foreign Office had announced on Wednesday that China was behind a major cyberattack on the Federal Agency for Cartography and Geodesy (BKG) at the end of 2021. The Chinese ambassador was summoned due to these findings. The German government condemns the cyberattack in the strongest terms. The BKG provides current official geodata for the entire federal territory. It also combines its own data with that of the federal states and third parties. The data and images are also used by companies in the security sector. Whether the cyber-spies were specifically looking for information for this user group during their attack, which likely remained undetected for an extended period, is not known.
The Commission at the German Foreign Office announced China's involvement in the cyberattack on the BKG. However, China's Foreign Ministry strongly refutes these allegations and urges Germany to abandon its "Cold War mindset."
