A new report by the Netherlands intelligence agency has indicted the Chinese government of being complicit in allegedly stealing its technology through cyber attacks and other espionage related attacks.

The Dutch national intelligence agency director-general, Erik Akerboom, said that China is targeting the Netherlands as an innovative country that develops new technology.

Concerns about the Chinese government that were stressed by Mr Akerboom included terrorism, extremism, hacking, espionage, covert influence, and sabotage.

The Dutch government also described the Chinese plot as the “biggest threat to the Netherlands’ economic security.”

“We see that every day they try to steal that from the Netherlands,” Mr Akerboom said in a report published on Voice of America on Monday.

“The Chinese use cyber as a weapon, cyber as a way to commit espionage, but they also send people to us — students, but also scientific persons of all kinds to especially steal knowledge from very vulnerable places,” he said.

Earlier this year, the Netherlands announced plans to place new limitations on the export of equipment used to manufacture innovative processor chips. This comes as the Dutch government was said to have backed a U.S. initiative restricting China’s access to raw ingredients needed to produce such chips.

In reaction, China criticised the moves as violations of market principles in international trade.