On Wednesday, the German judiciary launched two preliminary investigations against MEP Maximilian Krah, the top candidate of the populist, anti-Western Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, because he was allegedly paid by Russia and China for his parliamentary work. The proceedings add to the pressure on Krah to step down as the AfD’s top candidate in June’s EU elections. Earlier this week, German police arrested one of Krah’s parliamentary assistants, Jian Guo, for allegedly spying for China.
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Prevention warns
In the press office of the German Federal Prosecutor’s Office, which is responsible for the prevention, there is a lot of activity these days: “Arrest on suspicion of secret service agent activity” – reads the title of an April 23 press release. A press release the day before had exactly the same headline. All four suspects – three men and one woman – are said to have spied for China.
According to the 2023 report of the countermeasures: “China’s global ambitions seek to gain more and more power, and it is expected to further increase its espionage activities and seek to influence state actors,” the report reads. China is in no hurry, Thomas Haldenwang, head of the institution, told DW: “By 2049, they want to become the number one political, military and economic power in the world. And they are constantly pursuing this goal – by legal means, but also by illegal means,” he said. Chinese academics and students studying at German universities are “obliged to hand over information to the state,” warns Haldenwang.
The populist right-wing AfD, which is under nationwide surveillance by the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution as an extremist party, has been repeatedly accused of having close ties with Russia.
However, according to the intelligence chief, Russia’s motives are different from China’s. “Given the hot war Russia is waging with enormous effort, it would be remiss not to assume that its intelligence services are capable and willing to carry out complex operations in Europe,” Haldenwang pointed out.
The path of the AfD
AfD’s foreign policy positions can be summarized in three terms: anti-Americanism, closeness to Russia, and understanding of China. CDU party chairman Friedrich Merz called AfD co-chairman Tino Chrupalla Putin’s “useful idiot” in the Bundestag. AfD’s candidates running in the European Parliament elections are now proving to be “useful idiots of Putin and Xi”.
“The spies in the ranks of the AfD are willing accomplices in the autocrats’ attempt to undermine German and European democracy,” believes political scientist Albrecht von Lucke. He publishes the monthly journal Blätter für deutsche und internationale Politik.
Revival of Bismarck’s alliance
The basic foreign policy orientations of the AfD become clear from the statements of their leaders and from the internal documents of the foreign policy working group of the AfD faction. These were analyzed by the research network Correctiv 2022.
Former party chairman Alexander Gauland called for the revival of the Bismarckian alliances and the pursuit of good relations with Russia, despite Moscow’s hegemonic policies. He expressed his understanding of Vladimir Putin’s activities of “collecting Russian land”.
Chrupalla visits Moscow despite the annexation of Crimea
Tino Chrupalla traveled to Moscow in 2020, where he was received by Foreign Minister Lavrov. He went against the government’s line that German politicians should refrain from such “normal” relations after the annexation of Crimea. AfD representatives ignore that Putin’s authoritarian regime is murdering dissidents in the West, including the Tiergarten killings in Berlin.
They mostly refuse to classify Putin’s war against Ukraine as a war of aggression that violates international law, and they do not want to consider Putin a war criminal. The AfD presents itself as a “peace party” that strives for dialogue with Moscow – this is eerily similar to the line of the domestic ruling party.
According to Björn Höcke, AfD’s top candidate in Thuringia, Russia is defending itself in Ukraine against the power aspirations of the USA. According to him, President Putin merely “reacted harshly and consistently to the offensive of a foreign power after a long hesitation”.
Höcke: the USA has no place in Europe
In his speech in Gera on German Unity Day 2022, Höcke called the USA a “foreign power” in Europe. In the Ukrainian war, he would place himself and Germany on the side of the “East”, i.e. Russia.
Regarding China, the AfD also blames the US for the tensions surrounding Taiwan – and not Beijing’s threats to forcefully integrate the democratic island into the People’s Republic. In its working document, the AfD calls for a “realistic, peaceful and independent German China policy”.
Germany must decide independently about its relationship with Beijing. And “actively pursue your interests independently of NATO and the EU”.
Human rights in China are not AfD’s business
The AfD sees China and the USA as equal partners for Germany. “He wants to create a balance between relations with the US and China”. Criticism of human rights violations in China is just a nuisance and is not heard by the AfD.
The AfD’s penchant for dictatorships includes Iran. Its Bundestag representative, Roger Beckamp, promotes a friendly policy towards the mullahs’ regime in Tehran. It is therefore no coincidence that Bundestag representative Joana Cotar left the AfD two years ago because, according to her, it “flattered itself to the dictatorial and inhumane regimes of Russia, China and now Iran”.
(Author’s page of Csaba Káncz available here.)
