UK Times:

China has hacked into the computers of Angela Merkel’s Chancellery and three other German ministries in an extraordinary economic espionage operation that threatens to blight the German leader’s already delicate trip to Beijing this week.

The claims, made in a detailed investigation by Der Spiegel magazine, were denied strenuously by the Chinese authorities yesterday, but there was no mistaking German anger. “If true, it is unacceptable,” Ralf Stegner, a senior Social Democrat, said. “China is a competitor as well as a trading partner. Mrs Merkel has to get to the bottom of the affair on her China trip.”…

Computers in the Chancellery, the Foreign, Economics and Research ministries had been targeted. The Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV) conducted a comprehensive search of government IT installations and prevented a further 160 giga-bytes of information being transferred to China. Commentators described it as “the biggest digital defence ever mounted by the German state”. The information was being siphoned off almost daily by hackers in Lanzhou, northern China, in Canton province and in Beijing.

But is the message Merkel is sending to China by leaking this information at this time one of strength or of weakness?

This entry was posted on Monday, August 27th, 2007 at 7:35 am and is filed under China, EU, General, business. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.