China's Influence Ops via German Education
China's Influence Ops via German Education
Germany Gets An Education On Subterfuge
20 March 2023
China's Influence Ops via German Education
Germany Gets An Education On Subterfuge
The comment below appeared on the LinkedIn account of Sarah Kirchberger, Head of Asia-Pacific Strategy and Security at Institute for Security Policy at Kiel University (ISPK), Nonresident Senior Fellow at the Atlantic Council & Vice President, German Maritime Institute (DMI).
Dr. Kirchberger was kind enough to allow me to share this with you on China In Arms:
COMMENT and DOCUMENTS:
Accidentally, I stumbled over an interesting text published in 2008 by China's Education Ministry in which it announces and details the important military functions of the Ocean University of China in Qingdao, as per an agreement it concluded with the PLA dating back to 2002.
I found it intriguing because the Ocean University has a long-standing and intense research partnership with a multitude of civilian German counterparts active in various ocean sciences... all of which contribute somehow to climate science, but are also foundational for submarine operations and anti-submarine warfare.
And Qingdao is of course a key location for China's submarine force, hosting the PLAN's [People’s Liberation Army Navy] Submarine Academy, a SSBN [ballistic missile submarine] base], and numerous naval research facilities, with which Ocean University, as we learn from the document, closely interacts.
I now wonder: Have the German education ministry, which funds this cooperation, and the German universities and research facilities that participate in it ever bothered to conduct at least some sort of due diligence on their Chinese cooperation partner?
Has anyone bothered to check the background and full list of affiliations of the participating counterparts from Ocean University?
If not, the German taxpayer may have generously "broadened the teaching channels for national defense students" of China.
On the Ocean University's website, the "Center for Sino-German Cooperation in Marine Sciences" is described as follows:
"The Center for Sino-German Cooperation in Marine Sciences (SGMS) was established on February 24, 2011. It was jointly initiated by 5 research and educational institutions, including OUC, the University of Bremen, the University of Kiel, the Leibniz Institute for Marine Science, and the Leibniz Center for Tropical Marine Research. It is a high-level research and educational cooperation platform in marine science supported by the Chinese Ministry of Education and the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research.
Headquartered at OUC, SGMS is operated by the Key Laboratory of Physical Oceanography of the Ministry of Education, with Prof. Chen Xianyao serving as the director. The center also has offices in Kiel and Bremen, Germany. The three universities and two institutions provide relevant support such as human resources for SGMS. The purpose of the center is to strengthen the cooperation in marine science between Chinese and German universities and research institutes."
One can find numerous reports of German counterparts hosting workshops in this context, and various German professors have been recognized and offered visiting professorships at Ocean University.
Have a read of the attached document - it has been machine translated by Google for your convenience, and the Chinese original is given at the end too.
-SK
