Four days before its first campaign rally ahead of the European elections on June 9, the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party – credited with around 17% of voting intentions – has received some embarrassing news. According to several German media outlets, a close associate of MEP Maximilian Krah, the party's lead candidate for the June 9 ballot, was arrested in Dresden on the night of Monday, April 22 to Tuesday, April 23 for spying on behalf of China.

Jian G., 43, has been working with Krah since his election into the European Parliament in 2019. The former businessman, with dual German and Chinese citizenship, traveled to China with Krah shortly after his election. According to the weeklies Der Spiegel and Die Zeit, he is accused of having passed on to the Chinese secret services information relating to deliberations and decisions taken within the European Parliament, as well as having spied on Germany-based opponents of Xi Jinping's regime.

According to Die Zeit, however, the man has long been known to the authorities in Germany. Around 10 years ago, he offered to work as an informer for the German intelligence services, but even then he was suspected of being an agent in Beijing's service – his stance in favor of Xi Jinping and Taiwan's attachment to China being at odds with his active presence in several dissident groups based in Germany.

Before Jian G. joined Krah's parliamentary team in Brussels, the two men had already known each other for a long time, the latter having been the former's lawyer for several years before being elected Member of the European Parliament. At the time, the alleged spy was a member of the Social Democratic Party (SPD, center-left), which he has since left to join the AfD alongside his new boss.

Within the AfD, MEP Krah's interest in China is well known. In a 2019 interview with far-right magazine Zuerst!, Krah lamented that China is seen by the West as its new "enemy number one." If Europe wants to be an "independent player on the world stage and not just a vassal of the US," it must "seek good relations with China," he had said.

Jian G.'s arrest comes less than 24 hours after the Federal Prosecutor's Office announced the arrest, in western Germany, of three people "strongly suspected of having worked for a Chinese secret service." One of them, identified as Thomas R., allegedly "gathered information in Germany on innovative technologies that could be used for military purposes," according to the prosecutor's office.

You have 34.13% of this article left to read. The rest is for subscribers only.