China behind daily internet attacks on Germany

Hans Elmar Remberg, vice president of the German Office for the Protection of the Constitution, told a Berlin conference on industrial espionage that his country was involved in "the Chinese cyber war".

"In our view, state Chinese interests stand behind these digital attacks," Reuters reported.

"Supporting this view is the intensity, structure and scope of the attacks, and above all the targets, which include authorities and companies."

Remberg's comments follow a recent spate of government statements that China is using hacking to gain information.

The French secretary general for national defence Francis Delon, the US Pentagon and a member of the Commons Foreign Affairs Committee have all made similar claims.

"Across the world the People's Republic of China is intensively gathering political, military, corporate-strategic and scientific information in order to bridge their technological gaps as quickly as possible," Remberg said.