PIXABAY
A survey of more than 100 companies by the Berlin-based Merics think tank for China studies and the BDI industry association showed that the threshhold for exerting pressure on companies is falling. The number of known cases rose significantly from 2018, it found. The researchers said that in addition to issues of national sovereignty, reports on the emergence of coronavirus disease 2019 , sanctions against Chinese companies like telecoms equipment maker Huawei or support for parties classified as anti-Chinese are now seen as “new red lines.”
Washington sees Huawei as an arm of the Chinese Communist Party’s global surveillance machinery, but Huawei has repeatedly denied spying for the Chinese state.