![]() “I believe this is the most severe counterintelligence threat facing our country today,” Mr. He later disclosed that the bureau has received thousands of complaints about suspicious activity by alleged Chinese government spies at research institutions in the U.S., and that every FBI investigation in these areas has unearthed larger problems. “Our prosperity and place in the world are at risk,” said Bill Priestap, the FBI’s top counterintelligence official. The disclosures, at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, came as the Trump administration is preparing to lay out an unprecedented amount of evidence in coming days about Chinese spying and hacking operations designed to steal secrets from U.S. senators on Wednesday, issuing stark warnings that Beijing is exploiting American technology to develop its own economy. This year, the AIVD is researching specific threats and manifestations and how companies and the government can arm themselves against them, according to RTL.WASHINGTON-Chinese corporate espionage has metastasized into a critical national and economic security threat, top federal investigative officials told U.S. “The country is trying to obtain high-quality knowledge and technology in the Netherlands.” “China is the biggest threat to economic security in the Netherlands,” the AIVD said in its most recent annual report, warning of espionage, influence, and sabotage. Intelligence service AIVD has warned about China’s increasing influence in the Netherlands for years. Otherwise, we will only pay a much higher price for it later, as we are now doing with Russia.” “We are too dependent on China, and we must reduce that dependence quickly. It is time to intervene, Holslag said to the broadcaster. The Netherlands considers the energy sector “vital infrastructure.” There are 14 Chinese companies active in this sector.Īnd 25 Chinese-owned companies are active in other vital infrastructure sectors like money transfer, internet and data services, and IT and communications. Chint Solar, for example, has 13 solar parks in the Netherlands that supply power to 160,000 households, and another six solar parks are under development. Some caution is in order here.”Ĭhinese companies are also prominent in the Dutch solar energy sector. About the port, he said: “China has access to our market and wants to gradually dominate those logistics chains. It is a means to take our technology, our knowledge in the long term, so as not to be dependent on other countries anymore,” he said. Holslag called China’s presence at the port of Rotterdam and the technical universities “very worrying.” “We must consider that China sees cooperation as a means, not an end. According to RTL, the TU/e campus is home to at least eight Chinese companies focused on high-tech knowledge. Chinese high-tech companies are also popping up around technical universities in the Netherlands, like the Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e). “This makes it quite difficult for the government to monitor them permanently.”Ĭhina owns several large container transshipment companies in the port of Rotterdam, including COSCO - a leading player in the container flows between Europe and China. “There are a lot of them,” China expert Jonathan Holslag of the Free University in Brussels said to RTL Nieuws about the list of companies. Between 20, almost 90 percent of Chinese investments in Europe went to four countries - the United Kingdom, Germany, France, and the Netherlands. The Netherlands is an interesting country for China. Intelligence service AIVD and China experts are worried about espionage, according to the broadcaster. The companies are active in the port of Rotterdam and the telecom and energy sectors. The Netherlands has 903 companies that are at least 50 percent owned by a Chinese parent company or the Chinese State, RTL Nieuws and Follow the Money report.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |