China's new ambassador to Germany faces ties tested by spying accusations

South China Morning Post
Sun, Aug 4, 20244

China has picked a seasoned diplomat with decades of US affairs experience to be its next top envoy to Germany, according to a source with knowledge of the situation.

Deng Hongbo is deputy director of the Office of the Foreign Affairs Commission of the Communist Party's Central Committee, a primary body for shaping and coordinating China's foreign policy. He will succeed Wu Ken as Beijing's ambassador to Berlin.

The nomination, which has not been made public, comes as ties between the two countries are tested by Berlin's espionage accusations against Beijing.

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Germany on Wednesday accused China of being behind a 2021 cyber spying attack against its federal cartography agency and summoned Beijing's ambassador to lodge a complaint.

China rejected the German claim, calling it a "baseless" accusation.

"It's smearing for political purposes," the Chinese foreign ministry's top Europe official, Wang Lutong, wrote on Friday on social media platform X, formerly Twitter.

That was about four months after the Chinese ministry summoned German ambassador Patricia Flor over Berlin's arrest of four Germans accused of spying for Beijing, urging Germany to stop "malicious speculation and anti-China political farce".

China's ambassador to Germany is considered a vice-ministerial post - the same level as its envoys to permanent members of the United Nations Security Council and a rank Deng already holds.


Deng, 59, has years of experience working on Beijing's relations with Washington.

After being posted in Vietnam for about five years, Deng began a long career at the Chinese embassy in the US in 1993, serving in various positions until 2005, when he left for the Chinese foreign ministry's department of North American and Oceanian affairs.

After two years as a deputy head of the department and a stint of less than one year as China's ambassador to Kenya, he was reassigned in 2010 to the embassy in Washington as China's No 2 diplomat there until his departure three years later.

In November 2018, it was confirmed that Deng had taken up his current position at the Office of the Foreign Affairs Commission of the Communist Party's Central Committee.

His public appearances include a visit to the southwestern megacity of Chongqing last September to inspect a local agricultural project supported by the commission and a November 2022 briefing to his colleagues about the 20th party congress.

Chinese ambassador to Germany Wu Ken delivers a farewell speech at Beijing's embassy in Berlin on July 24. Photo: Chinese embassy in Germany alt=Chinese ambassador to Germany Wu Ken delivers a farewell speech at Beijing's embassy in Berlin on July 24. Photo: Chinese embassy in Germany>

Wu, who has served as China's ambassador to Germany since 2019, was officially confirmed to be leaving the post last week.

During a farewell speech at the Chinese embassy in Berlin on July 24, Wu said bilateral ties had navigated the tests of the Covid-19 pandemic and geopolitical conflicts over the past five years.

"China-Germany relations have always been an important stabilising factor in China-EU relations. Exchanges and cooperation in various fields have remained close and fruitful," he said, adding that frequent high-level exchanges had "provided strong strategic guidance for the development of bilateral relations".

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz visited China for three days in April. In his public remarks during the trip, Scholz did not throw his support behind Brussels' de-risking agenda.

His previous trip to China in November 2022 was the first by any leader from the Group of Seven nations since the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Germany has long been China's biggest trading partner in Europe.

China was Germany's top trading partner in the world for eight years in a row until it was dethroned by the US in the first quarter of this year, according to data from the German Federal Statistical Office.

Germany's direct investment in China in the first half of the year grew 18.1 per cent year on year in Chinese yuan terms, while overall inflows into the world's second-biggest economy fell 29.1 per cent during the same time frame, according to the Chinese commerce ministry.

Beijing also shares some concerns with Berlin when it comes to EU tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles.

During his trip to China in June, Germany's vice chancellor and minister for economic affairs Robert Habeck said that "tariffs only ultimately hurt the market, I don't want them. I hope nobody in Europe wants the tariffs. Therefore, we should work to avoid it."

While in Beijing, Habeck said that Germany's China strategy, which was released a year ago and labelled the country a "partner, competitor and systemic rival", needed to be updated to include a long-term plan and take Europe's approach into account.

However, Habeck also said China's support for Russia in the war against Ukraine was the main reason for the deterioration in economic relations between Berlin and Beijing.

This article originally appeared in the South China Morning Post (SCMP), the most authoritative voice reporting on China and Asia for more than a century. For more SCMP stories, please explore the SCMP app or visit the SCMP's Facebook and Twitter pages. Copyright © 2024 South China Morning Post Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved.

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