Siemens boss Joe Kaeser on Friday lashed out at the practices used by Chinese investors to exercise total control over foreign firms, as disquiet grows about China's appetite for German technology and know-how. The recent ousting of robotics maker Kuka's chief executive Till Reuter two years after the prestigious German firm was taken over by Chinese group Midea, was just the latest example, Kaeser told the regional daily Augsburger Allgemeine.
"The Chinese go into a company, give guarantees about employment and then everything is calm for a while. At some point, they set up a separate company that swallows the old one, and take away the research and development." The unusually frank comments come just days after the German government toughened rules on non-EU share purchases or acquisitions of strategic companies, in a measure aimed at curbing Chinese takeovers.
Alarm has grown in Germany about the sell-off of vital technologies to the highest bidder since Chinese appliance giant Midea acquired Kuka for 4.6 billion euros ($5 billion) in 2016. Kaeser said Siemens was itself interested in purchasing Kuka at the time but the German conglomerate could not justify the high asking price.
"They were convinced that with the Chinese everything would stay the same, except that the market would be ten times bigger," the Siemens chief executive told the daily. "Of course hindsight is everything, but they could have expected this from the start."
Under the new legislation approved by Chancellor Angela Merkel's government on Wednesday, Germany plans to lower the threshold where reviews apply to foreign purchase offers of 10 percent of strategic companies, down from 25 percent now.
The measures will apply to the defence, high-tech and infrastructure sectors, including utilities and telecoms providers, as well as media companies. Concern has also grown in other European capitals in recent years as Chinese companies have bought up or purchased controlling stakes in high-tech firms, airports and harbours.
Several EU countries have also voiced reservations about Beijing's "Silk Road" initiative, which seeks to link the continents through a network of ports, railways, roads and industrial parks, but which critics see as an attempted influence grab by Beijing.
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