GERMANY is under attack from an increasing number of state-backed
Chinese spying operations that are costing its economy tens of
billions of euros a year, a leading German counterintelligence agent
has said.

Walter Opfermann, an expert on espionage protection in the office for
counter-intelligence for the state of Baden-Wuerttemberg, said China
was stealing industrial secrets using an array of "polished methods"
from conventional spies and phone-tapping to the internet

Mr Opfermann said methods had become "extremely sophisticated" to the
extent that China was now capable of "sabotaging whole chunks of
infrastructure", such as Germany's power grid. "This poses a danger
not just for Germany but for critical infrastructure worldwide," he
said.

Russia was also "top of the list" of states using internet spying
techniques to garner German expertise, which "helps save billions on
their own economic research and development".

Quote:
Russia had only "hundreds of thousands of agents", compared with
China's 1 million, but it had "years more experience".

The areas most under attack included car manufacturing, renewable
energy, chemistry, communication, optics, X-ray technology, machinery
and armaments. Information being gathered was related to not only
research and development but also management techniques and marketing
strategies.

In 2007 the consultancy firm Corporate Trust estimated that about 20
per cent of German companies - mainly small and middle-sized ones -
had been victims of industrial espionage.

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