Enlarge image
Ship of the Chinese fleet: Strained relationship
Photo by Jiang Xiaowei/Xinhua/IMAGO
In the opinion of the FDP foreign politician Alexander Graf Lambsdorff, Germany must better arm itself against Chinese espionage attempts and dependence on Beijing.
"We have to assume that China is also trying to spy out our sensitive data in Germany," he told the newspapers of the Funke media group, referring to the flight of a suspected spy balloon over the United States.
State institutions must become more resistant to such attempts than has been the case up to now.
"In addition, Germany needs a comprehensive China stress test to determine where our critical infrastructures are dependent on China, even where they are operated privately," said Lambsdorff.
The German government also reacted with concern to the tense relationship between the USA and China on Monday.
"We hope that the incident will not lead to further tensions or even an escalation in American-Chinese relations," said deputy government spokesman Wolfgang Büchner.
A US fighter jet shot down the balloon, which had been flying over the United States for days, on Sunday off the Atlantic coast of the state of South Carolina.
China was accused of using the balloon to spy on important military installations.
The government in Beijing, on the other hand, spoke of a research balloon that went off course due to strong winds and insufficient control options.
mik/dpa-AFX