In the spring of this year, Markus Söder (CSU) was the first German Prime Minister to visit China since the end of the corona pandemic. “We want to have the appropriate balance between our values, but also our interests, and to open up security, understanding, but also economic opportunities for our own people,” he said after his return. For Markus Rinderspacher (SPD), this sentence raises questions. He therefore wanted to know more from the state government about China policy.
In its response, the Interior Ministry wrote that no information was available on the requested persecution of opposition by the Chinese state in Bavaria. This would require a time-consuming individual evaluation of files and data sets. In order to prevent espionage, people and institutions at risk from the areas of politics, administration, business, science and research are regularly informed. They do not want to say more on this because the information could be used by foreign intelligence services to adapt their methods and their own knowledge.
According to the Interior Ministry, Bavarian municipalities are being advised by the State Office for Information Security (LSI) on taking IT equipment with them and using it on business trips to China. The Bavarian representative offices on site also offer support in preparing and accompanying delegations from Bavaria at the municipal level.
The EU and the USA are considering a ban
Since 2021, a total of 31 investment projects by Chinese companies managed by the Bavarian settlement agency Invest in Bavaria have been successfully completed. The focus was on new settlements with 29 projects. As a result, a total of 904 new jobs have been created in Bavaria since 2021. The state government is not aware of any takeovers of Bavarian companies by Chinese companies. The same applies to the question of whether employee rights were respected after the investments or whether knowledge flowed from Bavaria to China.
According to information from the office of Interior Minister Joachim Herrmann (CSU), employees of the state government and the ministerial administration are generally allowed to use the Chinese social media platform Tiktok – usually for public relations work, for example. “The departments decide on their own responsibility about the use of apps on official devices.” Only the Interior Ministry advises against using it, which is why Tiktok cannot be installed on official cell phones there. Even ministries are active on the platform – either through their own contributions, such as the Ministry of Construction, or through advertising, such as the Ministry of Culture. In the USA and the EU, a ban on the platform is currently being considered due to data protection violations.
According to the Herrmann department, human rights issues were also addressed during Prime Minister Söder’s trip during bilateral talks with representatives of the Chinese central and provincial governments. However, a trip to Taiwan, which is not recognized by China, is not planned in the future. (David Lohmann)
