GERMANY:German chancellor Angela Merkel's state visit to China today has been overshadowed by allegations that the Chinese secret service planted software bugs in German government computers.
Intelligence officers in Berlin say they discovered "trojan horse" bugs on computers in the chancellery, as well as the foreign, economics and research ministries.
Disguised in another programme, trojan horse software loads itself without permission on to a user's computer, allowing the monitoring of computer activity and transmission of hard drive contents to a remote computer.
Berlin officials say they have no idea how much information was transmitted out of the government computers but noted in an internal report that it "is only of interest to state authorities".
"For this reason, it has to be assumed that the Chinese state is involved in the electronic attacks," said the report.
Chinese authorities have denied involvement in the computer espionage that was first uncovered in May.
The Chinese embassy in Berlin dismissed the report as "irresponsible speculation without any basis of evidence" and said that Beijing "always takes a responsible position and immediately opens investigations" in cases where "sound evidence exists".
The cover story of current affairs magazine Der Spiegel listed cases of Chinese espionage at companies in Germany, as well as joint partnerships between German and Chinese companies in China that ended in wholesale product theft: from pipes and chainsaws to engineering innovations such as Daimler's Smart car and magnetic train technology from Siemens.
Ahead of her China trip, Dr Merkel said she did not want to comment on the electronic espionage allegations.
"But I want to say that at the moment in relations with China, we are paying close attention to the protection of intellectual property," she said.
China is the first leg of her week-long Asian tour with an agenda of climate change, economic ties and human rights.
In her weekly podcast, Dr Merkel said she would not shy away from discussing China's human rights record.
"We have such close economic relations with each other, such close political relations, that we naturally also can discuss questions that are perhaps contentious," she said.
On Wednesday, Dr Merkel will travel to Japan.