China complains as the Netherlands warns of its endemic espionage
Tom Rogan
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Outlining his 2022 report on threats to the Netherlands, the director-general of that nation’s intelligence service observed that China poses “the biggest threat to the Netherlands’s economic security.”
Erik Akerboom leads the General Intelligence and Security Service, also known as AIVD. Highly capable, AIVD is a favored partner of America and Britain’s intelligence services and excels at disrupting Russian intelligence operations. Nevertheless, Akerboom’s statement on China is notable in its directness. And it comes at a sensitive time as Beijing demands that the Netherlands reject U.S.-negotiated export restrictions on highly advanced semiconductor chip manufacturing equipment. The United States rightly fears China will use that equipment to develop its military capabilities in anticipation of a conflict with the U.S. over Taiwan.
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Speaking to the Associated Press, Akerboom noted that when it comes to China’s strategy toward the chip industry, “every day they try to steal that from the Netherlands … [using] cyber as a way to commit espionage, but they also send people to us — students, but also scientific persons of all kinds to especially steal knowledge from very vulnerable places.”
China’s use of students and scientists as intelligence agents is an open secret, with Akerboom’s statement joining threat assessments made by the FBI and Britain’s MI5 intelligence service. These warnings (and related cases) serve as a brutal indictment of the Biden administration’s ending of the associated “China Initiative,” which was designed to identify Chinese spies. The statements also repudiate the idiocy of those who insist a priority counterintelligence focus on Chinese academic travel to the U.S. is somehow racist.
Predictably, Akerboom’s warning resulted in screeching from Beijing on Tuesday.
A Chinese foreign ministry spokesman declared it “irresponsible for relevant Dutch authorities to frame such mutually beneficial cooperation as an issue about security. This could sour the atmosphere for bilateral cooperation and does not serve the interest of the Netherlands.” The Communist Party’s Global Times propaganda newspaper added that China seeks only fair economic dealing and that Akerboom’s words show the Netherlands is falling into a U.S. “trap.”
The problem for China?
Its rosy rhetoric is utterly undermined by its own espionage. Chinese spies are globally tasked with stealing whatever they cannot more easily buy. They do so without regard for intellectual property laws or the innovative efforts of others. They do so because Xi Jinping regards China’s innovation as the critical component of his nation’s long-term economic development and global political supremacy. And as Xi further obliterates domestic entrepreneurship in order to centralize the Communist Party’s power, his need to steal technology from abroad will only increase.
Put simply, Akerboom isn’t saying anything controversial. And China has no credible rebuttal.