Chinese spying on Dutch industries 'intensifying': Dutch defence minister

Chinese efforts to spy on the Dutch are intensifying, with the focus on semiconductors, Dutch Defence Minister Ruben Brekelmans said on Saturday.

"The semiconductor industry, which we are technologically leading, or technology advanced, of course, to get that intellectual property - that's interesting to China," Brekelmans said in an interview on the sidelines of the Shangri-La Dialogue security meeting in Singapore.

The Dutch military intelligence agency said in its annual report in April last year that Chinese spies have targeted the Dutch semiconductor, aerospace and maritime industries to try to strengthen China's armed forces.

When asked if the spying had stopped, Brekelmans said: "It's continuing. In our newest intelligence reports, our intelligence agency said that the biggest cyber threat is coming from China, and that we do see most cyber activity when it comes to us being as from China. That was the case last year, but that's still the case. So we only see this intensifying."

China's foreign ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Beijing routinely denies allegations of cyber espionage and says it opposes all forms of cyberattack.

Dutch intelligence agencies first publicly attributed cyber espionage to China last year, when they said state-backed cyber spies had gained access to a Dutch military network in 2023.

Brekelmans said security is becoming increasingly important for the Netherlands as China is "using their economic position for geopolitical purposes and also to pressure us".

The minister said the Netherlands has introduced instruments to protect key industries and vital interests but the country and region also need to reduce their dependency on China for critical raw materials.

"Both on the European Union level, but also on the national level, we need to make bigger steps in order to reduce those dependencies."