By Sven Röbel and Holger Stark, Spiegel Online
A new espionage case is putting pressure on ties between Germany and China. German prosecutors are investigating senior Chinese officials who they believe spied on Falun Gong supporters in Germany. The developments have seriously strained relations and brought back practices last used during the Cold War.
When German Chancellor Angela Merkel flies to Beijing in July, she will have plenty of the usual accolades for the Chinese. She will say that relations between the two countries are excellent and communication is amicable and intense. "I believe that one can say that relations are gaining a lot of momentum," the chancellor typically says on such occasions.
What Merkel will probably not mention publicly is the other side of the German-Chinese relationship, which is also gathering momentum. It takes place in the world of espionage and intelligence agencies, and it has to do with Chinese agents in Germany, secret investigations and discreet diplomats. This dark side sometimes comes to the surface, as it did in a town near the northern German city of Hanover, where a team from the German Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA), appeared at the house of Dan Sun (editors' note: the name has been changed) on a Wednesday morning in mid-May and presented a search warrant.
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