Germany’s Federal Prosecutor’s Office has ordered the arrest of a couple suspected of spying for China at the country’s universities, with the alleged aim of stealing sensitive technical knowledge for use by Beijing’s military.
The arrests took place on Wednesday in Munich. The suspects are Xuejun C., 55, and his wife Hua S., 52, both German nationals of Chinese origin.
The couple are accused of approaching scientists at German universities and research institutions to obtain “scientific information on high-technology with military applications”, according to the Federal Prosecutor’s Office.
Investigators have said the pair targeted professors and academics working in aerospace engineering, computer science and artificial intelligence. “When approaching them, the accused sometimes posed as interpreters or as employees of a car manufacturer,” the prosecutor’s office said.
Some scientists were reportedly lured to China under the pretext of delivering paid lectures to civilian audiences. “But the lectures were in fact given to members of state-owned arms companies,” the office said in its statement.
The accused targeted institutions including RWTH Aachen University in western Germany, the prosecutor’s office said, and had built up an extensive network of contacts.
Searches at homes and workplaces were carried out alongside the arrests, with investigators gathering information and evidence across the states of Baden-Württemberg, Bavaria, Berlin, Brandenburg, Lower Saxony and North Rhine-Westphalia. The operations involved 10 people in total — not suspects but witnesses, most of them scientists, according to the Federal Prosecutor’s Office.
The couple, accused of acting as agents for Chinese intelligence services, were due to be transferred on Wednesday to Karlsruhe in southwest Germany. An investigating judge at the Federal Court of Justice was set to notify them of the arrest warrants and rule on whether to hold them in pre-trial detention.
German security authorities have warned in recent years that Beijing’s intelligence services have stepped up their activities significantly on German soil. The focus had previously been on classic economic and industrial espionage targeting German firms, including cyberattacks on large corporations whose products interested China and on highly innovative small and medium-sized companies.
More recently, that focus has shifted increasingly towards science. Universities and higher education institutions have become a target for Chinese spies seeking valuable research findings — not only through hackers and operatives posing as business people or scientists on platforms such as LinkedIn, but also through academic exchanges, joint projects, visiting professorships and student placements.
Beijing’s spies appear particularly interested in dual-use military technologies, including propulsion systems for missiles and cruise missiles, lasers, microchips, robotics and artificial intelligence. The transfer of knowledge is also pursued through company acquisitions and direct investment, German security sources have said.
According to Germany’s Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution, the country’s domestic intelligence service, China continues to spy on members of its diaspora abroad. Targets include opponents and critics of the regime, members of the Uyghur and Tibetan minorities and followers of the Falun Gong religious movement, which is banned in China.
