German spy indictment punctures attempted China-Europe thaw

The indictment trains the spotlight back on China’s spying at a sensitive time. It comes as signs of a thaw between Beijing and the European Union are emerging and just days before Friedrich Merz, a conservative, is expected to be elected Germany’s new chancellor with a mandate to recast Germany’s foreign policy.

The charges, which prosecutors said were brought earlier this month, come almost a year after a Chinese-born German national, identified as Jian G., was detained while working as a parliamentary assistant to a senior member of the far-right Alternative for Germany, or AfD.

Jian G. is accused of obtaining more than 500 documents, including some classified as particularly sensitive, while working at the European Parliament, prosecutors said. Yaqi X., a Chinese national, was charged with providing Jian G. with information about weapon shipments out of Germany.

Merz’s government-in-waiting has said it would adopt the more China-critical policy initiated under the previous government but also seek cooperation with Beijing whenever warranted by German and European interests. Merz himself has repeatedly warned German companies to reduce their exposure to the Chinese market.

Yet Merz has also made it a priority to recalibrate German policy, seeking closer cooperation with traditional European allies. After people close to President Trump, including Elon Musk and Vice President JD Vance, expressed support for the AfD at the February election, Merz said he would make Germany more independent of the U.S.

Spying charges against a Chinese-born German national come amid signs of a thaw between Beijing and the European Union.

Given the more adversarial tone in the trans-Atlantic relation, analysts expect Berlin and other European capitals will be less inclined to join future U.S. initiatives to weaken China than they were under the Biden administration.

Meanwhile, the European Parliament said last week that its president was in the final stages of negotiating the removal of sanctions imposed by Beijing in 2021 against several European lawmakers. Beijing adopted the sanctions after the EU sanctioned some Chinese officials it accused of committing human-rights violations in the Xinjiang region.

At the time of his arrest, Jian G. was working as an assistant to Maximilian Krah, then a member of the European Parliament and his party’s lead candidate at last year’s European election. Krah, who has since been elected to the German Parliament, isn’t a suspect in the case and has disavowed his former assistant.

Jian G. had been an employee of the Chinese intelligence service since 2002, according to the indictment. He used his position at the European Parliament between 2019 and 2024 to gather information for China about the body’s decisions, prosecutors said.

He is also suspected of gathering notes about the top leaders of the AfD party, though these constituted a small part of the documents he had obtained, according to a person familiar with the case.

Prosecutors also accused Jian G. of posing as a critic of the Chinese government to spy on Chinese opposition members and dissidents in Germany and to gather personal data about them.

Jian G.’s lawyer and the Chinese Embassy in Berlin didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.

Yaqi X., a 38-year old Chinese national, was detained last September while working for a logistics company at the Leipzig airport in Eastern Germany. Prosecutors said she had collected flights, cargo and passenger information for Jian G., including data on people related to a German armaments company. At the time of her arrest, German officials said her targets included U.S. weapon shipments to Israel.

Merz’s proposed coalition faces its last major hurdle on Wednesday when the Social Democratic Party, junior partner in the alliance, releases the result of a ballot of its members on whether to endorse the 144-page coalition agreement between the two parties.

Write to Bertrand Benoit at bertrand.benoit@wsj.com