V. Politics

A. Political parties

The relationships between parties, or the “Party’s diplomacy,” is an important 

front for the CCP, and a significant part of its state diplomacy, as we explained in the section 

about the International Liaison Department (ILD), which is in charge of it (→ p. 70). 

The Party considers that this diplomatic form presents many advantages: it reinforces the 

inter-states relationships, palliate the weaknesses of official diplomacy, offers a vehicle to 

broadcast a good image of the Party abroad, and strengthens the Party’s power.523 Although 

its activities resemble public diplomacy, they more often than not consist in infiltrating 

target societies in order to influence the development of public policies. 

These direct relationships between political parties can be used to circumvent official 

diplomacy, and allow the CCP to infiltrate the local political life, something that the PRC, 

if it were to be a target, would likely qualify as interference. These links can be exploited 

in different ways: on the one hand, the relationships with a governing party can, in some 

countries, serve as a channel of influence to the government; on the other, the relationships 

with one or several opposition parties can be instrumentalized to pressure the government. 

Essentially, the relationships between parties enhance the knowledge of the dynam-

ics that characterize the local political life, to identify the potentially exploitable 

tensions and weaknesses, but also to broadcast the Party’s propaganda and its narratives, 

to defend the Chinese agenda and a positive image of the country, and to participate in 

targeting potential sources and “useful idiots.” 

Since Xi Jinping came to power, the ILD has multiplied the “presentation sessions” (

宣介会) organized for foreign political personalities,524 officially to respond to a “global 

demand.” According to that idea, countries apparently want to know China and the CCP 

better, and to understand why they “succeed.” It is apparently the “new question everyone 

asks.”525 These presentation sessions are an opportunity to expose the policies led by China, 

their successes, to explain the “spirit” (精神) of the Party’s congresses, to demonstrate the 

“unique advantage” (独特优势) of the Chinese governing system and of Chinese social-

ism, and to build a common language.526 The latter is articulated around the rhetoric of 

“community of common destiny,” guided by the “Chinese dream,” playing the role of a 

“bridge.” It is materialized in the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) (→ p. 150). 

Besides, rather than mere “presentation” sessions, as the name suggests, they are really 

a “recruiting” and building program to rally foreign political parties to the Chinese 

agenda. These “presentation sessions” are organized by the ILD, either in China – inviting 

foreign political dignitaries -or abroad, sending delegations of the Party to visit targeted 

parties directly. 

523. 金鑫 (Jin Xin), “国内外关于中国共产党对外交往的研究综述” (“A Summary of the Chinese and Foreign 

Research on the Party’s Diplomacy”), CPC News (16 Mar. 2015), https://archive.vn/8bf89.

524. Neil Thomas, “Proselytizing Power: The Party Wants the World to Learn from Its Experiences,” Macro Polo 

(22 Jan. 2020).

525. “中国为什么能?” “中国共产党为什么行?” “成为新的” 世界之问,” (“Why is China Capable of it?” 

“Why Does the Chinese Communist Party Succeed?” Have Become the New “World Questions”); See 侯露露 (Hou 

Lulu), “近三十个对外宣介团在近八十个国家和地区精准传播十九大精神” (“Close to 30 Propaganda Groups 

Broadcast with Precision the Mindset of the 19th Congress in Close to 80 Countries and Regions”), CPC News (2 Feb. 

2018), https://archive.vn/dw20f. 

526. “王家瑞：努力开创党的对外工作新局面” (“Wang Jiarui: Let Us Try to Create the New Phase of the 

Party’s Diplomacy”), CPC News (3 Jun. 2014), https://archive.vn/vYyQR. 

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1. A strategy initially oriented toward China’s allies, in a process of 

diversification

The target countries are, first and foremost, those in the immediate vicinity of 

Beijing, and those who, historically, are part of the “Third World” and share the leg-

acy of Bandung, in Africa, in the Middle East and in Latin America.527 At the “presentation 

session” organized in Nanchang, Jiangxi, in November 2019, the ILD gathered some 

200 political personalities from about fifty countries to explain the “spirit” (精神) of 

the 4th plenum of the 19th Party Congress. To salute the Chinese “achievements,” several 

guests took the floor: delegates from the Lao People’s Revolutionary Party, the Democratic 

Party of Mongolia, the Baas Party in Syria, Cyprus’ Democratic Rally and the Cambodian 

People’s Party.528 Several events of this type were organized at the provincial level to pres-

ent the Chinese “achievements” on specific themes: the ethnic policy and promotion of 

interethnic unity and solidarity in Xinjiang in 2019; the rural revitalization policy in Henan 

in 2019; the determining role of the policy of reforms and opening in China’s destiny in 

Guangdong in 2018; or even, the promotion of “high quality” development in Zhejiang in 

2018.529

Attending these “presentation sessions” were delegates of the Keadilan Party of Malaysia 

(in the ruling coalition), Indonesia’s National Mandate Party (minority), the Pakistan 

Tehreek-e-Insaf Party (ruling party), the United Hearts Movement of Central African 

Republic (presidential majority), Botswana’s Democratic Party (ruling party), Communist 

Party of Vietnam (ruling party), United Russia (ruling party), and of the Nationalist Party 

of Malta (opposition).530

As for the delegations sent abroad, their number has significantly grown since 

2013. According to the data collected by Macro Polo, although only six, then ten countries 

received delegations from the ILD in 2013 and 2014, about forty countries were visited 

between November 2015 and March 2016, after the 5th plenum of the 18th Congress, about 

thirty after the 6th plenum and about sixty after the 19th Congress. This increase reveals the 

Party’s growing interest in that vector of influence. The visits were conducted by executives 

of the ILD and other structures of the Party-State such as the State Council, the National 

People’s Congress, the Central Party School of the CCP, the Propaganda Department, or 

the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference.531

The highlight of this “Party diplomacy” was the “High-Level Summit: The CCP 

in Dialogue with the World’s Political Parties” (中国共产党与世界政党高层对话

527. “以周边和发展中国家为重点, […] 实现对亚非拉发展中国家政党政要的全面交往” (“By Considering 

the Key Neighboring and Developing Countries, Let us Develop a Full Engagement with Political Parties of Africa, 

Asia and Latin America”). See “深入学习习近平总书记党的对外工作重要思想 努力开创党的对外工作新局

面” (“Let Us Study the Thinking of General Secretary Xi Jinping on the External Work of the Party, and Let Us Try 

to Create the New Phase for the Party’s Diplomacy”), Qiushi (15 Oct. 2017), https://archive.vn/c3hh9.

528. “中联部面向外国政党举办四中全会精神宣介会” (“The International Liaisons Department Held a 

Presentation Session on the Spirit of the 4th Plenum to Foreign Political Parties”), International Liaison Department 

(20 Nov. 2019), https://archive.vn/ErZcb.

529. The pages regarding the events organized in Xinjiang are available here: https://archive.vn/KuNHn; Henan: 

https://archive.vn/VRmut; Guangdong: https://archive.vn/EePDd; and Zhejiang: https://archive.vn/KuNHn.

530. More info on the delegates coming from Malaysia: https://archive.vn/WzwXI; from Indonesia: https://

archive.vn/K4umZ; from Pakistan: https://archive.vn/4S3Aa and https://archive.vn/uwnZw; from the Central 

African Republic: https://archive.vn/zJG2Z; Botswana: https://archive.vn/q5FS5; from Vietnam and Russia: 

https://archive.vn/EePDd; and from Malta: https://archive.vn/nNrAh.

531. The data collected by Macro Polo can be downloaded at: https://macropolo.org/wp-content/

uploads/2020/01/ILD-Foreign-Briefings-List-Updated.xlsx.

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会).532 Organized in Beijing from November 30 to December 3, 2017 by the ILD, it gath-

ered a total of 600 executives of about 300 political parties and groups from 120 

countries. It was the first summit of this type since the creation of the CCP where, in the 

words of the ILD director Song Tao (宋涛), political leaders from all over the world were 

brought together around the idea of the creation of a “community of common destiny,” 

one of the leitmotiv of the Chinese propaganda we mentioned previously (→ p. 149).533 

The subheading of the event was: “Build a community of common destiny and a beauti-

ful world: the responsibility of political parties.” And the summit was structured around 

two plenary sessions and one seminar, in the spirit of the 19th Congress, followed by four 

conferences on the challenges and the future of the Party’s consolidation; the Party’s expe-

rience in the building of a “beautiful” country; the Party’s contributions in the construction 

of the Belt and Road Initiative; the responsibility and the role of the leader of the Party in 

the construction of a community of common destiny.534 In his opening speech, Xi Jinping 

announced that the CCP hoped to institutionalize this summit to make it a high level polit-

ical dialogue platform with a large representation and influence at the international level, 

and that a total of 15,000 political personalities of the entire world would be invited 

to China by the CCP over the next five years.535

The complete list of foreign delegates at the Summit was apparently not published and 

only the names of those who took the floor during the event are known, although we do 

not have access to the content of their speeches. The presence and intervention of Tony 

Parker, treasurer of the Republican National Committee (RNC) was noticed and con-

demned by the RNC chairwoman Ronna Romney McDaniel, who had allegedly not been 

informed of his participation, although Parker affirmed had had let her know prior to the 

event.536 Invited and sponsored by the EastWest Institute (EWI), Tony Parker previously 

took part to other events organized by this think tank, which is closely tied to China.537 

In 2016, for instance, he was part of the American delegation to the 9th edition of the 

US-China High-Level Political Party Leaders Dialogue.538 Other representatives of political 

parties already known for their proximity with the CCP also took the floor, such as Serguei 

Jelezniak, then vice secretary of the executive board of United Russia (the ruling party); 

Aung San Suu Kyi, president of the National League for Democracy (in power at that time) 

of Myanmar; Hun Sen, prime minister and president of the Cambodian People Party (rul-

ing party); or Demeke Mekonnen, vice-president of the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary 

Democratic Front (coalition in power).539 In addition, there were representatives of the 

Congolese Party of Labor (ruling majority), Fiji First (ruling party), Sudan’s National 

532. The event’s page can be found with this link: https://archive.vn/HhyXW.

533. 马小宁 (Ma Xiaoning), 孟祥麟 (Meng Xianglin), and 李伟红 (Li Weihong), “发挥政党作用 携手建设更

加 美好的世界” (“Let us Reveal the Role of the Political Parties and Build, Together, a Better World”), CPC News (4 

Dec. 2017), https://archive.vn/OHYKI.

534. The program is available on the event’s website: https://archive.vn/HhyXW.

535. Xi Jinping’s speech is available (in English): https://archive.vn/SEhTQ; (in Chinese): https://archive.vn/

raCKw.

536. Ralph Z. Hallow, “RNC official burnishes Xi’s image, tangles with Chairman McDaniel,” The Washington Times 

(1 Feb. 2018).

537. Ibid.

538. Natalie Pretzer-Lin, “9th U.S.-China High-Level Political Party Leaders Dialogue,” EastWest Institute (23 Nov. 

2016), https://archive.vn/XNRan.

539. Interventions of Serguei Jelezniak: https://archive.vn/FUmHR; Aung San Suu Kyi: https://archive.vn/

immjT; Hun Sen: https://archive.vn/jo1kA; Demeke Mekonnen: https://archive.vn/wdGxg.

257

Congress Party (dissolved in 2019), and of the Italian Democratic Party.540 The former 

French Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin also attended.541

Before this world-scale summit, the ILD organized more targeted, regional forums, 

such as those between China and the United States (中美政党对话), China and Africa (中

非政党理论研讨会), China and Asia (中亚政党论坛), and China and Europe (中欧政

党高层论坛).542 In 2017, the China-Africa and China-Asia dialogues held their 3rd and 2nd 

editions respectively. The other two, on the other hand, were launched in 2010. The former 

Democratic Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and the then-director for Chinese Affairs 

at the State Department, Richard Llewellyn Williams attended the first edition. Additionally, 

the Chinese-American dialogue hosts a bipartisan American delegation approximatively 

once a year.543 On December 4, 2017, this dialogue was held around the theme “China 

and the United-States: a New Beginning, New Opportunities, New Cooperation” and the 

American delegates were able to meet Yang Jiechi.544 An 11th edition was held in November 

2019 around the theme “The Chinese and American Political Parties and the China-US 

Relations” with the participation of Gary Locke, the Democratic former Secretary of 

Commerce in the Obama administration, and first American of Chinese descent appointed 

ambassador to China; but with Alphonso Jackson also, a Republican former Secretary of 

Housing and Urban Development, already present at the 10th edition.545 These dialogues, 

always organized by the ILD, and mostly held in Beijing, gather about fifty participants each 

time, mostly representatives of political parties but also from think tanks and the business 

world.546

As for the High-Level Forum of Political Parties between China and Europe, at least five 

editions have been held since 2010. Also organized by the ILD, this forum was held in vari-

ous cities of China, including Beijing, Tianjin and Suzhou, but also in Brussels. In 2016, the 

5th edition took place in two phases with a first forum in Beijing, followed by an economic 

and commercial dialogue centered around the BRI at Zhengzhou, to which 40 political del-

egates from 20 European countries participated.547 Two Bulgarian delegates, Yanaki Stoilov 

and Sergei Stanishev, respectively former vice-president at the National Assembly and for-

540. Mentions of the parties from Congo: https://archive.vn/nQCYC; from Fiji: https://archive.vn/oThZj; from 

Sudan: https://archive.vn/BHXbZ; and from Italy: https://archive.vn/2nWB2.

541. The participation of Jean-Pierre Raffarin (拉法兰) is mentioned in “中国共产党与世界政 党高层对话

会的三个小故事” (“Three Little Stories about the Summit for High-level Dialogue Between the CCP and Other 

Political Parties of the World.”), CPC News (27 Sept. 2019), https://archive.vn/00M3T. He was also present on the 

group picture (middle line, second from the right), which can be found via: https://archive.vn/R32PD; and he was 

also photographed with ILD Director Song Tao: https://archive.vn/oHhfu.

542. See the political parties’ dialogues between China and the United States: https://archive.vn/rr8Kn; between 

China and Africa: https://archive.vn/acJqj; between China and Asia: https://archive.vn/MEI2l; between China and 

Europe: https://archive.vn/1bBof.

543. “中美政党举行高层对话” (“The Chinese and American Political Parties Hold a High-level Dialogue”), 

China news (31 Mar. 2010), https://archive.vn/gP1Sp.

544. “第十届中美政 党对话在北京举行” (“The 10e Edition of the Chinese and American Political Parties 

Dialogue was Held in Beijing”), Sina (4 Dec. 2017), https://archive.vn/WMkFK. 杨洁篪会见美国共和、民主两

党代表团 (“Yang Jiechi Meets with the Bipartisan American Delegation”), International Department Central Committee of 

CPC (3 Dec. 2017), https://archive.vn/7vFQ2.

545. “第十一届中美政 党对话在北京举行” (“The 11th Edition of the Chinese and American Political Parties 

Dialogue was Held in Beijing”), PRC government website (18 Nov. 2019), https://archive.vn/noc18. 第十届中美

政党对话在北京举行，中联部部长宋涛与外宾握手 (“The 10e Edition of the Chinese and American Political 

Parties Dialogue was held in Beijing, the Minister of the Liaison Department Song Tao Shakes the Hand of the 

Guests”), International Department Central Committee of CPC (7 Dec. 2017), https://archive.vn/pUJVv.

546. “第十一届中美政党 对话在北京举行” (“The 11e Edition of the Chinese and American Political Parties 

Dialogue was Held in Beijing”), https://archive.vn/noc18.

547. Kong Genhong, “High-level Political Parties Forum Galvanizes China-Europe Cooperation,” China.org (8 

Aug. 2016), https://archive.vn/XFfkF.

258

mer prime minister of Bulgaria, expressed their support for the BRI during the proceedings 

and commended the opportunities it brings to different countries.548 

The objective of these events is to reach the largest spectrum of political parties. That is 

why several delegates from the same country, but of different political parties, can be tar-

geted. The ILD has, for instance, invited Francis Wurtz, former president of the European 

United Left/Nordic Green Left (GUE/NGL) and member of the French Communist 

Party but also Thierry Mariani, former vice-president of the French Union for a Popular 

Movement (UMP).549 In the case of Germany, the ILD invited Lothar Bisky, former 

co-president of the German left-wing party, Die Linke, and president of the GUE/NGL, 

along with Reinhard Bütikofer, a member of the German ecologist party Alliance 90/The 

Greens and former vice-president of the European Green Party, or Elmar Brock, a mem-

ber of the European People’s Party and president of the Committee on Foreign Affairs 

of the European Parliament.550 Similarly, Charles Michel, president of the Reformist 

Movement, later Prime Minister of Belgium, Philippe Lamberts, member of the Belgian 

Ecolo Party and then co-president of the European Green Party, along with Véronique 

de Keyser, member of the Belgium Socialist Party and former vice-president of the 

Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats of the European Parliament also partici-

pated in this forum.551 We can note some participants from Spain, Emilio Menéndez del 

Valle, a member of the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats; from Sweden, 

Kent Härstedt, member of the Swedish Social Democratic Party and president of the 

Friendship Association for China of the Swedish Parliament; from Great-Britain, Graham 

Watson, president of the European Liberal Democrat and Reform Party group (ELDR), 

from Montenegro, Srđan Milić, president of the Socialist People’s Party of Montenegro, 

and even from Ireland, Dick Roche, former member of the Republic Party Fianna Fáil, 

Irish minister for European Affairs and vice-president of the ELDR.552

2. Converting influence into political resources

The network weaved by the ILD enables it to identify and retain politicians will-

ing to defend China’s image by intervening in local media or acting behind the scenes in 

the CCP’s interest. Lothar Bisky for instance, said he was impressed by the CCP’s determi-

nation to improve the living condition of the Chinese population,553 and he criticized the 

coverage of China in Western media, which he did not consider to be objective.554 Philippe 

Lamberts was impressed by China’s commitment to build social harmony and environmen-

tal awareness, qualifying the PRC as a “natural partner of the EU” and affirming that “the 

destinies of all countries are tied.”555 Thierry Mariani commended the Chinese initiative 

548. Ibid.

549. Ibid.

550. Ibid.; Uking Sun, “Forum speakers suggest more dialogue,” China Daily (31 May 2012) https://archive.vn/

wMKfQ.

551. “China and Belgium”, Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the PRC, https://archive.vn/VVNma; Uking Sun, “EU 

Politicians Urge Cooperation with China,” China Daily (2 Jun. 2012), https://archive.vn/A5R6f; “The EU-China High-

Level Political Parties and Groups’ Forum,” Socialists and democrats (31 May 2012).

552. Uking Sun, “EU Politicians Urge Cooperation with China,” China Daily (2 Jun. 2012), https://archive.vn/

A5R6f; Uking Sun, “Political Parties Forum Progresses Well,” China Daily (3 Jun. 2012), https://archive.vn/pbn6D; 

Genhong, “High-level political Parties Forum Galvanizes China-Europe Cooperation.”

553. Ibid.

554. “中欧政党高层论坛新闻发 布会” (“Press conference of the Chinese and European Political Parties 

Forum”), State Council Information Office of the PRC (26 May 2010).

555. Sun, “EU Politicians Urge Cooperation with China.”

259

– i.e. the forum – in promoting a mutual understanding and he called for a deeper cooper-

ation between China and France.556 

As for Irish former minister Dick Roche, who had already commended “China’s spec-

tacular results” and called to increase the cooperation with China,557 he became a consultant 

with European institutions, and his main client, Huawei, presumably paid him between 

€100,000 and €200,000 between 2018 and 2019, according to the EU’s transparency regis-

ter,558 which led some media outlets to call him a “Huawei lobbyist.” He was joined by the 

former European diplomat Serge Abou, also on the payroll of the Chinese company.559 They 

are not the only Europeans who have offered their services – and opened their contact 

books – to Chinese clients. In its attempt to win the Estonian market for the construc-

tion of the 5G network, Huawei turned to the PR consultant company Powerhouse, which 

employed three former Estonian ministers: the company’s co-founder Janek Mäggi, a 

former public administration minister, Marko Pomerants and Andres Anvelts, who both 

occupied several ministerial positions, including at the ministry of the interior.560 According 

to Re: Baltica, Pomerants and Mäggi sought to open the doors of the Estonian government 

to Huawei by mobilizing their personal network: Pomerants’s party (Isamaa) was in the 

ruling power coalition at the time.561 A member of the Estonian Social Democratic Party, 

and a former participant to the China-Europe Forum organized by the ILD, Randel Länts 

managed the “government relations” pole in the consulting company Miltton, which sup-

posedly offered PR services to the Chinese Embassy in Tallinn.562 In fact, Central and 

Eastern European countries are specifically targeted by the ILD, who has organized 

two types of forums for this region (→ p. 310): the Dialogue Between Political Parties of 

China and Central and Eastern Europe (中国- 中东欧政党对话会), in Budapest in 2016 

and Bucharest in 2017, but also the Forum of Young Political Leaders of China and Central 

and Eastern Europe (中国与中东欧青年政治家论坛), in Beijing in 2015, which invited 

Mailis Reps, an Estonian Centre Party minister of education and research, among others.563 

Maintaining direct relations with influential politicians in any country opens the 

doors to infiltrating its societies, collecting official and unofficial support, and to 

bypassing potential blockages inside the structures of power using opposition or 

“retired” politicians. The Party already prides itself that China’s position on the South 

China Sea is supported by “over 120 states, 240 political groups and parties, and 280 think 

tanks and NGOs” across the world, the result of an effective “party diplomacy.”564 Others 

have expressed support for the Chinese policy in Xinjiang and Hong Kong, or praised the 

BRI. Such support often comes from political parties with ideals close to the CCP’s, such as 

Cyprus’ Progressive Party of Working People (AKEL), a “communist ally” and one of the 

556. Zheng Yangpeng, “Beijing, Paris Should ‘Work Together,’” China Daily (24 Apr. 2013), https://archive.

vn/7kQ7S; Genhong, “High-level Political Parties Forum Galvanizes China-Europe Cooperation.”

557. Ibid.

558. https://ec.europa.eu/transparencyregister/public/consultation/displaylobbyist.do?id=48084848642-01.

559. Ellie Donnelly, “Ex-minister to Earn Up to €200,000 as Huawei Lobbyist,” Independent.ie (9 Mar. 2020).

560. Frank Jüris, “Estonian Parties in the CCP’s Grip: The International Liaison Department’s Influence Activities,” 

Sinopsis (25 Sept. 2020).

561. Holger Roonemaa, “Huawei’s Backdoor in Estonia: Ex-Ministers Hired for Last Minute Lobby Efforts,” 

Re:Baltica (16 Feb. 2020).

562. Frank Jüris, “Estonian Parties in the CCP’s grip.” 

563. Ibid.; “Mailis Rep,” 中国与中东欧青年政治家论坛 (Young Political Leaders Forum of China and Central and 

Eastern Europe Countries) (24 Oct. 2015).

564. “深入学习习近平总书记党的对外工作重要思想 努力开创党的对外工作新局面” (“Let Us Study the 

Thinking of General Secretary Xi Jinping on the Party’s Foreign Work and Let Us Try to Create the New Phase for the 

Party’s Diplomacy”), 求是 (Qiushi) (15 Oct. 2017), https://archive.vn/c3hh9.

260

most important parties in the country. Its secretary general, Andros Kyprianou, has often 

taken a stand in favor of China, its governance model, the BRI, or denounced the “vio-

lence” in Hong Kong.565 This party was also targeted by visits from the ILD and “presen-

tation sessions.”566 More recently, a dozen political leaders supposedly sent congratulation 

messages to the ILD to praise the Chinese management of the Covid-19 crisis.567 Besides, 

the ILD organized a video-conference in June 2020, as part of the “CCP in Dialogue” 

Summit, with communist parties from Latin America countries (Argentina, Brazil, Chili, 

Cuba, Peru, Uruguay, and Venezuela) on “the Strengths of Popular Philosophy of the CCP 

and its Response to Covid-19” – which sets the tone of the discussion.568 

Furthermore, this party diplomacy improves the Chinese’s understanding of 

national events. In 2014, exchanges between the ILD and a delegation from the Estonian 

Parliament, presided by Marko Mihkelson, focused, among other things, on the situation 

in Ukraine. It enabled the Chinese to better understand how the United States and its allies 

reacted to the Russian aggression, and, as such, helped them think about their own actions 

in Hong Kong, in the South China Sea, and vis-à-vis Taiwan.569

Another objective of this “Party diplomacy” is to reinforce China’s discursive power 

at the international level.570 When China calls for the development of a new “common 

language” across the world, it evidently does not refer to any common language, but its 

own, of which the key words are “community of common destiny,” “win-win cooperation,” 

“new international order,” “international peace,” “world development,” and so on.571 The 

more political leaders and other influential personalities adopt this vocabulary, even if they 

do not endorse what it really means for the Chinese, the more China’s discursive power, its 

capacity to impose its narratives on China and the world is strengthened. By imposing its 

elements of speech, the Party shapes the debate, builds filters and interpretation 

schemes that favor it.572 The Party also seeks to impose a “good” image of China and to 

tell the “right” stories regarding China. Several pages of the ILD’s website titled “Stories 

of the CCP” (中国共产党的故事), explain, for instance, China’s various “achievements” 

in different domains.573 The Chinese make sure to use a discourse that can be echoed at the 

international level, and that foreign audience can easily accept.574

565. “China’s Development, Governance Set Model for World: Cypriot Party Leader,” Belt and Road News (4 Oct. 

2019); “Chinese Vice President Meets Republic of Cyprus Party Leader,” Global Times (8 Sept. 2009).

566. Qu Qingshan visited his party in December 2017. See the data collected by Macro Polo: https://macropolo.

org/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/ILD-Foreign-Briefings-List-Updated.xlsx.

567. “Foreign Party Leaders Praise CPC’s Role in Global Anti-Pandemic Effort,” Xinhuanet (9 Apr. 2020), https://

archive.vn/IHIvn.

568. “IDCPC Holds Video Conference with Communist Parties of Latin American Countries,” International 

Department Central Committee of CPC (9 Jun. 2020), https://archive.vn/V1OBW.

569. Frank Jüris, “Estonian Parties in the CCP’s grip: The International Liaison Department’s Influence Activities,” 

Sinopsis (25 Sept. 2020).

570. “王家瑞：努力开创党的对外工作新局面” (“Wang Jiarui: Let Us Try to Create the New Phase of the 

Party’s Diplomacy”), CPC News (3 Jun. 2014), https://archive.vn/vYyQR.

571. Xi Jinping, “Working Together to Build a Better World,” speech at the High-Level Summit: “the CCP in 

Dialogue with the World’s Political Parties” (1 Dec. 2017), https://archive.vn/SEhTQ.

572. Erving Goffman, Frame analysis: An essay on the organization of experience (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 

1974). 

573. “Stories of CPC: Jiangxi’s Achievements in Practicing Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese 

Characteristics for a New Era,” International Department Central Committee of CPC, https://archive.vn/yUOfd. “Stories 

of CPC: Henan’s Achievements in Practicing Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New 

Era,” International Department Central Committee of CPC, https://archive.vn/VRmut.

574. “用国际通用的话语和外国受众能够接受、易于接受、乐于接受的说法把中国故事讲清楚、说精

彩” (“Let Us Use the Discourse Commonly Used at the International Level, a Discourse that is Easily Acceptable by 

Foreign Audiences, to Tell Them the Chinese History Properly, in a Clear and Fascinating Way.”). See: “王家瑞：努

261

Beyond the advantages stemming from tightening relations with foreign political parties, 

this kind of events also enables the CCP to restore its image and to reinforce its legitimacy 

and credibility. Holding the 2017 “CCP in Dialogue” Summit was, according to ILD direc-

tor Song Tao, “largely applauded by the international community,” it “showed the great 

political inclusiveness and moral attractiveness of the Party,” and “represented a major con-

tribution to further the world political civilization.”575 To quote the words used by China, 

this kind of event is, indeed, an occasion to put forward CCP’s “political advantage” (政治

优势), and to show its “worldwide influence capacity” (世界影响力),576 without necessar-

ily trying to export the Chines model.577 

3. Priority to investments in the regions

The Canadian case (→ p. 539) illustrates the fact that Chinese efforts towards foreign 

political circles are often directed primarily towards the local and regional levels, which 

are more accessible and discreet targets, and make it possible to cover the territory 

and be as close as possible to the population.

In France, as elsewhere, the Chinese Embassy lobbies MPs and senators intensively, 

and organizes regional events with local political authorities, who are often in demand. 

This is notably the case of the Hauts-de-France region, which has notably developed its 

relations with China. Every year since 2017, it has invited the Chinese ambassador to cele-

brate the Chinese New Year in a large ceremony in Lille.578 On January 13, 2020, the event 

was co-organized with the Confucius Institute of the University of Artois.579 For the same 

reasons that favor decentralization in its influence efforts, Beijing is particularly seeking to 

locate its Confucius institutes and classes in medium-sized universities (→ p. 300). 

The Hauts-de-France region has also entered into an agreement with China’s Zhejiang 

province (September 2019) as well as between the ports of Dunkirk and Ningbo (April 

2019).

力开创党的对外工作新局面” (“Wang Jiarui: Let Us Try to Create the New Phase of the Party’s Diplomacy”), CPC 

News (3 Jun. 2014), https://archive.vn/vYyQR.

575. Song Tao, “Working Hard to Bring Happiness to the Chinese People and Promote Progress of All Mankind,” 

Global Times (3 Sept. 2020), https://archive.vn/A754u.

576. 马小宁 (Ma Xiaoning), 孟祥麟 (Meng Xianglin), and李伟红 (Li Weihong), “发挥政党作用 携手建设更加

美好的世界——中联部部长宋涛介绍中国共产党与世界政党高层对话会有关情况” (“Show the Party’s Role: 

Let Us Build a Better World Together – the ILD Director Song Tao Presents the CCP and the World Summit of 

Political Parties”), CPC News (Dec. 4, 2017), https://archive.vn/OHYKI.

577. Xi Jinping: “We do not ‘Import’ Models from Other Countries, nor do We Want to ‘Export’ the Chinese 

Model, Still Less Will we ask Other Countries to Replicate the Chinese Practice” in “Working Together to Build a 

Better World,” speech at the High-Level Summit:” the CCP in Dialogue with the World’s Political Parties (1 Dec. 2017), 

https://archive.vn/SEhTQ.

578. “Amis chinois, bienvenue en Hauts-de-France!”, Région Hauts-de-France (14 Feb. 2018) (https://www.

hautsdefrance.fr/chine-bienvenue-nouvel-an/).

579. “La célébration du Nouvel An chinois 2020 organisée conjointement par la Région Hauts-de-France et 

l’Institut Confucius de l’Université d’Artois” (“The celebration of the Chinese New Year 2020 organized jointly by the 

Hauts-de-France Region and the Confucius Institute of the University of Artois”), Bureau of Confucius Institutes, 

Nanjing University, February 15, 2020 (https://archive.vn/fn4BD).

262

Influencing federated and decentralized actors: the German example

In Germany, Berlin is not the best environment to observe and analyze China’s interferences. 

The federal organization of Germany de facto renders it far more vulnerable to inter-

ference at the Länder level (Bavaria and Bada-Wurtemberg where companies are particularly 

exposed to the Chinese market, as well as North-Rhine-Westphalia with Duisburg, a Chinese-

style smart city). 

No study at the local level has been conducted, in North-Rhine-Westphalia for instance, to 

establish a precise map of the numerous Chinese initiatives, apparently under the cover of 

business development, and the economic-financial interdependencies stemming from it (busi-

ness trips, economic partnerships, R&D, university programs). Duisburg (a project of digital 

city, or smart city580) and Gelsenkirchen are often pointed out as vulnerable due to their finan-

cial situations (in the Ruhr region) and partnerships with Chinese companies such as Huawei 

(Duisburg)

The difficulty comes from the decentralized political power and its federal character, which lim-

it any attempt at centralizing information, and hence any coordinated federal policy response. 

For foreign actors, Germany’s decentralization is a “windfall for influence actions.”581 

In addition, parts of the partnerships (such as the Thousand Talents program (→ p. 292), sup-

port to study programs, etc.) are not covered by the 2018 German law on foreign investment, 

because they are not participations in a company’s capital or joint-ventures.582 

The different political cultures in Germany, between the East and the West, even thirty years 

after the fall of the Berlin Wall, favor the permeability to CCP narratives. The foothold of the 

AfD and Die Linke parties, both vectors of greater acceptance of authoritarian discourses 

than in the West, is doubled with a tendency to use a narrative of victimization in a part of the 

electorate (Ossis, victims of the West). This is, in fine, a more permissive and vulnerable 

environment for the actions of Chinese actors and their relays – highlighting the discrim-

inations supposedly faced by China and its companies.

B. People

“What other country, besides China, coopts as many former leaders from all over the 

planet?”583 Le Canard enchaîné asked after listing two former French Prime Minister (Jean-

Pierre Raffarin et Dominique de Villepin), one former British Prime Minister (David 

Cameron), a former German vice-Chancellor (Philippe Rösler) and one former Australian 

Prime Minister (Paul Keating) – a list far from exhaustive that encompasses practically 

every country. As was previously mentioned, in Estonia for instance, “the Powerhouse 

company, which was lobbying in the name of the Chinese company Huawei, employs three 

former Estonian ministers”584 (→ p. 259).

The Chinese Communist Party has always forged links with politicians from 

countries whose positions, or at least, whose representations of China, they wished to 

influence. These practices were also part of the Soviet repertoire of active measures and 

are among United Front activities. In the Chinese case, the ILD plays an important role in 

this type of operations as it is responsible for maintaining most of the bilateral relations 

with political parties. 

580. On this topic see: Alice Ekman, “The Chinese Art City. New Sphere of Influence,” Études de l’IFRI (Dec. 

2019).

581. Interview conducted by one of our research assistants in Berlin (Mar. 2020).

582. See the work of Felix Turbanisch, PhD student researching that topic at the University of Göttingen.

583. La Chine démasquée, 23.

584. Frank Jüris, “Estonian Parties in the CCP’s grip: The International Liaison Department’s Influence Activities,” 

Synopsis (25 Sept. 2020).

263

It can be noted, however, that the CCP has made increasingly important efforts regard-

ing targets that could be particularly useful. One method seen in Australia,585 but also in 

European institutions, consists in appointing advisors close to Western politicians. 

Charles Parton thus reported that, during the visit of European MEPs in Beijing, a “British 

deputy had brought his advisor, a former Chinese professor, to an internal meeting, and 

had defended positions that differed little, or not at all, from the Propaganda department’s 

documents. Said advisor is well known in Brussels for organizing pro-China events.”586

The ties can be varied: some politicians are only contacts to Chinese agents using them 

to transmit messages or influence opinions; another circle is composed of politicians who 

can be manipulated, based on their ideology or sheer interest: they are “useful idiots”; a 

third group is composed of individuals fully aware of working for Chinese interests and 

who accept it, whatever the reason may be. They are actual influence agents that Beijing 

can trust with more specific directives; finally, the last circle, closest to the Party, is com-

posed of those formally recruited by Chinese intelligence services. When politicians 

stay out of reach from Beijing’s efforts, the Party can use intimidation or punitive actions 

(one of its most common weapons being visa denial, used against researchers [→ p. 285] 

but also against recalcitrant politicians). The level of penetration and the number of pol-

iticians under influence greatly vary from country to country. Many cases are known in 

Australia and New Zealand, but the phenomenon touches everyone, everywhere. 

In Germany for instance, Bundestag politicians, MPs and ex-MPs from all parties, 

are courted by companies or the embassy: from the CDU-CSU (Hans-Peter Friedrich 

(CDU), vice-president of Bundestag is seen as pro-China) through exchange programs ded-

icated to young talents, to the FDP, SPD, or the AfD. The B’90-Grünen is the only group 

that seems to stay impermeable to these actions of influence (except for Jürgen Trittin), due 

to the prominence of human rights issues and to its core environmentalist ideology. The 

case of SPD deputies of the Bundestag Commission for Human Right, prohibited from 

entering the territory and denied entry visas in 2018, is often mentioned as an example 

of a visible, voluntary action. This initiative falls within a networking-lobbying approach 

brought about by several lead executives of German companies (Siemens, VW, etc.), all part 

of the DAX of the China-Brücke, and based on the model of the Transatlantik-Brücke; it 

shows that those who are pro-China still favor dialogue and see Beijing as an unavoidable 

trade partner (→ p. 252).587 

585. Clive Hamilton and Alex Joske, “Political Networking the Chinese Way – A Sydney MP and his ‘Community 

Adivsor,’” Syney Morning Herald (22 Jun. 2017). 

586. Charles Parton, China-UK Relations: Where to Draw the Border Between Influence and Interference? Royal United 

Services Institute for Defence and Security Studies (RUSI), Occasional Paper (Feb. 2019), 23.

587. See the work of the Henry Jackson Society and of the KAS on the CCP and China’s efforts to influence 

Germany. 

264

When a German MP hijacks a Chinese communication operation with some irony

In 2018, more than 100 Bundestag MPs received copies of the English edition of Xi Jinping’s 

recently-published China’s Governance II. The shipment was decided by a German marketing 

agency (Beijing makes extensive use of local communication and marketing agencies and lob-

byists to try to improve its image). The letter accompanying the book informed the MPs that 

it was free of charge but asked them in return to “display the books in their constituencies 

and send a photo to an e-mail address of the agency.”588 CDU MP Michael Brand, who is no 

stranger to Beijing, had an idea. He has specialized in the protection of religious minorities 

and has been known for his outspokenness toward the CCP, which made him persona non grata 

in China after he refused to answer the Chinese ambassador to Germany’s demand to censor 

his own website two years earlier (the ambassador asked him to remove photos and texts about 

the persecution of religious minorities). When he received Xi Jinping’s book and the request 

to display and photograph it, Brand did so: he displayed the books on a shelf, alongside books 

dedicated to crimes committed by the CCP or to resistant figures, such as the Dalai Lama and 

the artist Ai Weiwei. He took a photo (below) and sent it back to the sender.

Source: Christina Brause, Anette Dowideit, Tina Kaiser, and Maximilian Kalkhof, “Chinas heimliche 

Propagandisten,” Die Welt, June 15, 2021.

In the Czech Republic, another interesting European example, Chinese influence on 

politicians has reached new heights. MapInfluenCE described a massive penetration of 

Czech political networks,589 the Czech Social Democratic Party (ČSSD) most specifi-

cally. The links between this party and the CCP pre-date the election of President Miloš 

Zeman, and rest on a few key individuals such as Jan Hamáček, who leads the party, 

or Jan Kohout, a presidential advisor who was appointed head of the New Silk Road 

Institute Prague in 2015. According to MapInfluenCE, the social-democrats also harbor 

politically-involved entrepreneurs who use this platform to develop ties with the CCP 

or structures related to it. This influence can be illustrated by Jaroslav Tvrdík, a ČSSD 

former MP and defense minister in the governments of Miloš Zeman and Vladimír 

Špidla. He was vice-president of the board of directors of the Chinese company CEFC 

in Europe between 2015 and 2020. 

588. Brause et al., “Chinas heimliche Propagandisten.”

589. Their work is available via this link: https://www.chinfluence.eu/.

265

The close links between Tvrdík and China date back to at least 2012, when he became 

president of the supervisory board of the Czech-China Chamber of Mutual Cooperation, 

and then chairman of its board of directors two years later.590 Tvrdík subsequently became 

an advisor for Jiří Rusnok and Bohuslav Sobotka, prime ministers from 2013 to 2014 and 

from 2014 to 2017 respectively, on issues regarding China.591 In 2015, the Chinese conglom-

erate CEFC Group Europe set up its European headquarters in Prague, and launched an 

aggressive acquisition drive that targeted numerous Czech companies: J&T Finance Group, 

the airline Travel Group, the multimedia group Empresa Media, and even the football club 

SK Slavia Prague. Jaroslav Tvrdík, who was appointed vice-president of CEFC Europe, 

played a key role in the majority of these acquisitions. He also became chairman of the 

supervisory board of SK Slavia Prague in 2015, and then chairman of its board of directors 

in 2016. The president and founder of CEFC, Ye Jianming was, on his part, appointed 

political and economic advisor to the Czech president Milos Zeman.592 In 2017, this 

progression was hit by a scandal when CEFC was accused by the U.S. Justice Department 

of having bribed the Chadian president with €2 million in exchange for oil exploitation 

rights. Furthermore, CEFC China Energy was not able to pay its debt obligations, esti-

mated at €475 million, to J&T Private Investments on time. Hence, J&T obtained the 

shareholder rights and appointed a new president.593 Ye Jianming was eventually arrested in 

China in late 2018 on charges of corruption and economic crimes.594

The CITIC company, controlled by the Chinese government and, “for several specialists, 

an extraordinary den of intelligence officers,”595 took control of CEFC and managed to 

recover the group’s presidency by settling parts of its debt.596 Tvrdík was again appointed 

vice-chairman of CEFC Europe.597 Tvrdík is also seemingly tied to the supervisory board 

of the Traditional Chinese Medicine Foundation (TMC) which, as we saw, is one of Beijing’s 

influence tools (→ p. 152). Finally, he owns shares (25%) in the firm Little Mole Cartoon 

which, in 2016, coproduced with CCTV a 52-episode TV show depicting the little Czech 

mole and the Giant Chinese panda preparing the visit of Xi Jinping in Prague.598 That sole 

example shows how the CCP manages to turn local politicians in true agents, capable 

of infiltrating the political society of a nation. 

590. “Contacts,” China Investment Forum, http://www.czechchina.com/cif/?page_id=1850&lang=en (consulted 

on 24 Apr. 2020).

591. “Exministr Tvrdík se vrátil, radí Rusnokovi s Čínou,” Aktualne.cz https://zpravy.aktualne.cz/domaci/

exministrtvrdik-se-vratil-radi-rusnokovi-s-cinou/r~7e70a4405b1911e38b9e002590604f2e/ (consulted on 24 Apr. 

2020); Fu Jing, “Czech Republic Prepares for Dream Visit by Xi,” China Daily, (27 Apr. 2020), http://iosnews.

chinadaily.com.cn/newsdata/news//201603/27/383612/article.html.

592. A. Chen and J. Lopatka, “China’s CEFC Has Big Ambitions but Little Known About Ownership, 

Funding,”Reuters (13 Jan. 2017).

593. M. Shabu, “Konec Tvrdíka v‚ evropské ‘CEFC. J&T kvůli neuhrazení dluhů ovládla firmu, odvolané vedení 

krok zpochybň, Lidovky” (17 May 2018). https://www.lidovky.cz/byznys/firmy-a-trhy/j-t-sesadila-tvrdika-z-

vedenievropske-cefc-kvuli-neuhrazeni-dluhu.A180517_192428_firmy-trhy_pev. 

594. “Tvrdík: Česká CEFC bude do několika dnů oddlužená. Zaplatí 11,5 miliardy korun,” Lidovky (9 May 2018), 

https://www.lidovky.cz/byznys/firmy-a-trhy/tvrdik-ceska-cefc-bude-do-nekolika-dnu-oddluzena-zaplati-11-5-

miliardy-korun.A180509_174328_firmy-trhy_ele.

595. De Pierrebourg and Juneau-Katsuya, Ces espions venus d’ailleurs, 196.

596. J. Lopatka, “CEFC Europe Says CITIC Unit Taking Board Charimanship in Company,”Reuters (28 May 2018). 

597. “CEFC Europe Names New Managment Team,” Prague Business Journal (consulted 24 Apr. 2020), https://

praguebusinessjournal.com/cefc-europe-names-new-management-team/; “Tvrdík je zpět ve vedení CEFC Europe. 

Stal se místopředsedou představenstva,” Echo 24.cz (28 May 2018), https://www.echo24.cz/a/Sawtj/tvrdik-je-zpet-

vevedeni-cefc-europe-stal-se-mistopredsedou-predstavenstva.

598. C. Peterson, “Panda to join Little mole in new cartoon series” China Daily (28 Mar. 2016), http://www.

chinadaily.com.cn/culture/2016-03/28/content_24131110.htm.

266

On the left, Tvrdík answered a criticism of China that defended the help of the EU during the Covid-19. 

He mentioned China’s donations to Europe and the low prices of the Chinese masks.

On the right, a tweet mentioning the low number of Covid-19 cases in Wuhan compared to the Chinese population, 

and praising the drastic measures taken by the Chinese authorities to defeat the epidemic.

The resistance of Prague’s mayor

Zdeněk Hřib, mayor of Prague since 2018, did not fold under Chinese pressure when the 

Chinese ambassador asked him to exclude the Taiwan representative from a meeting with 

foreign diplomats. As the Ambassador invoked a clause from the 2016 agreement stipulating 

that Prague and Beijing are twin cities, and by which Prague committed its support to the One 

China policy, Hřib asked to drop the clause insofar as it regarded a foreign policy matter, in 

which an agreement between two cities had no weight. He additionally stood out by raising 

the Tibetan flag on the façade of the town hall in March 2019, to commemorate the 60th 

Anniversary of the 1959 Tibetan uprising (a tradition in Prague first set by Vaclav Havel that 

had been abandoned in 2014), by welcoming the exiled Tibetan government leader Lobsang 

Sangay for a visit, and by going to Taipei for an official visit of his own. In addition, he has 

regularly denounced the Human Rights violations committed by China.

267

I

The visit of the president of Czech Parliament in Taiwan

On January 10, 2020, the Chinese Ambassador in Prague sent a threatening letter to the 

then-president of the parliament, Jaroslav Kubera, second most important political figure in 

the country, to dissuade him from going on his planned visit to Taiwan. The letter stated that, 

if need be, retaliatory measures would be taken against Czech companies in China, such as 

Skoda Auto and Home Credit Group. In the end, Kubera could not see his project through – 

he died from a cardiac arrest ten days later, on January 20. His successor, Miloš Vystrčil, was 

subjected to equal pressure but he did not fold: he partook in a particularly mediatized official 

visit in Taiwan, at the head of a delegation of 90 people, from August 30 to September 4, 2020. 

The Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi immediately reacted to Prague crossing a 

“red line”; he hence announced that the country would pay a “heavy price” for this insult.599 

Several days later, Song Tao (宋涛), the head of the ILD (→ p. 70), asked the president of the 

central committee of the Czech Communist Party of Bohemia and Moravia (KSČM), Vojtěch 

Filip, to distance himself from Vystrčil.600 The country’s president Zeman subsequently an-

nounced that he would do the same.601 

The president of the parliament was also targeted by a defamation campaign, with misinfor-

mation stating that he had been paid $4 million by Taiwan for the visit, a sum supposedly 

meant to finance a future presidential campaign. The media Aktuálně.cz received messages 

from Michael Winkler and Robert J. Mojzes, representing the Swiss consulting firm RefinSol 

Advisory Services, inviting them to publish this (fake) news. Aktuálně.cz inquired about the 

informants and established that they were also behind eurasiainfo.ch, which seemingly relays 

information from the Chinese Embassy in Switzerland.602 Winkler also wrote pro-Beijing ar-

ticles (one was titled “Xi Jinping: a Responsible Leader in Switzerland,” in which he praised 

the Chinese president for the “depth of his knowledge on the historical ties” between the 

two countries and “the clarity and fairness of his objectives” during his visit).603 According to 

University of Basel Professor Ralph Weber, the RefinSol Advisory Services and eurasiainfo.ch 

offices are both located next to an association for overseas Chinese from the Jiangxi province 

headed by Zhu Ailian (朱爱莲), who runs eurasiainfo.ch with Winkler and Moizes. They seem 

close to the CCP: on a picture on the European Jiangxi Chamber of Commerce website, that 

she also runs, she poses with the Chinese vice-president, Wang Qishan.604

The CCP also seems very active within the Italian political class, targeting the M5S 

in particular.605 The situation is judged even more worrying since the Italian Ministry of 

Foreign Affairs has little resources on China. In addition, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, 

Luigi Di Maio, is perceived to be fully aligned with the CCP’s cause, defending its interests 

in Italy – although his positions seem to have evolved recently.606 He was notably criticized 

for signing a Belt and Roads Initiative agreement in March 2019, when he was minister of 

the Economic Development, which has increased the Italian trade imbalance and eased the 

Chinese penetration in Italy since. 

In France, as much as anywhere else, the Party has forged strong relationships 

with individuals enabling China to infiltrate the political sphere, defend its interest 

and silence critical voices. Beyond individuals punctually and diversely recruited by the 

599. “Wang Yi: Those Who Challenge The One China Principle Will Pay Heavy Price,” Ministry of Foreign Affairs 

of the PCR (31 Aug. 2020), https://archive.vn/NOuaK.

600. https://archive.ph/fW9m5. 

601. Martin Hála, Filip Jirouš, and Petra Ševčíková, “How the CCP Mobilized a Cross-Border Disinformation 

Campaign against the Czech Senate Speaker,” China Brief, 21:7 (12 Apr. 2021).

602. On the Chinese influence in Switzerland, see Ralph Weber, “Unified Message, Rhizomatic Delivery: A 

Preliminary Analysis of PRC/CCP Influence and the United Front in Switzerland,” Sinopsis (18 Dec. 2020). 

603. “Character Assassination as the ‘Heavy Price’ for Visiting Taiwan,” Sinopsis (11 Nov. 2020).

604. Ibid.

605. Meeting between one of the authors and an Italian researcher, in Germany (Feb. 2020). 

606. Giulia Pompili, “Di Maio e la Cina sono in una Relazione Complicata,” Il Foglio (30 Jul. 2020).

268

Party, the construction of a Chinese network within the French elite runs through the 

France-China Foundation since 2013. According to its staff, the foundation’s “Young 

Leaders” program aims to “promote the meeting of high potential individuals from China 

and France from diverse background (economic, political, cultural, media), who will play 

an important role in their home country or in the context of China-France relations.” The 

foundation was created by Emmanuel Lenain, Arnaud Ventura, Nicolas Macquin and Shan 

Sa on the French side.607 “‘The profiles are screened,’ recognized Nicolas Macquin. ‘There is 

a division within the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs – the Institute of Foreign Affairs 

of the Chinese people – that controls all these exchange and cooperation programs.’ The 

ministry itself lists the participants. Sponsoring the program, it ensures that one of its 

representatives is included in each of the sessions. They are Beijing’s eye, in some ways.”608 

If the list of the sessions reveals judicious choices among the French elite, the same can-

not be said about the Chinese elite. In fact, this type of structure serves, first and foremost, 

China’s interest by favoring the emergence of positive perceptions of China among the 

recipients and the creation of a reserve army from which the Party can draw to lead 

its influence operations. In China, the foundation is tied to the Chinese People’s Institute 

of Foreign Affairs (中国人民外交学会), which was created by Zhou Enlai (周恩来) in 

1949 to put in place a people-to-people diplomacy – in other words, to open more channels 

toward foreign elites. Today, the institute works within the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and 

ensures the ideological compatibility of selected French individuals. The Chinese system 

is not very different from how the Soviets used to send delegations abroad to pro-

vide the KGB with avenues of penetration in targeted societies and to facilitate the 

selection of potential “useful idiots.” 

This strategy of recruiting current or retired foreign politicians is led simultaneously to 

the ILD’s activities specifically targeting political parties. 

C. The elections

Chinese electoral interferences have long existed (there were allegations of illegal Chinese 

donations during the 1996 U.S. presidential campaign),609 but the evident Chinese disinhi-

bition in that regard is more recent. According to an ASPI report, China interfered in 10 

elections in 7 countries over the past decade, an majority of which took place in the 

Indo-Pacific region (Australia, Cambodia, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Taiwan),610 

the only other country being the United States. To this list a few local elections in Canada 

can be added, as voters were encouraged, via WeChat, to vote for certain candidates of 

Chinese descent in exchange for money (→ p. 562). 

The Canadian and Australian cases are, as usual, fairly similar, with the most obvious 

interferences conducted in the most “Sinicized” districts of the country, Richmond 

in British Colombia for Canada (54% of residents are of Chinese descent) and Bennelong 

(New South Wales) in Australia (21%).611 The American case is interesting insofar as it 

607. https://francechinafoundation.org/membres-fondateurs/?lang=fr.

608. La Chine démasquée, 97.

609. James Bennet, “Clinton Says Chinese Money Did Not Influence U.S. Policy,” The New York Times (18 May 

1998); Jeff Gerth and Eric Schmitt, “House Panel Says Chinese Obtained U.S. Arms Secrets,” The New York Times (31 

Dec. 1998).

610. Sarah O’Connor, Fergus Hanson, Emilia Currey, and Tracy Beattie, Cyber-enabled foreign interference in elections and 

referendums, ASPI, Policy Brief, Report 41 (2020), 15.

611. https://quickstats.censusdata.abs.gov.au/census_services/getproduct/census/2016/quickstat/CED103.

269

involved a cyberattack targeting Biden’s team, which could be an attempt to copy what the 

Russians did in 2016 with the DNC Leaks (→ p. 625). 

However, the Taiwanese case remains the best documented (→ p. 458), in particular 

the 2018 elections that marked the “first claim of a direct PLA involvement in disinforma-

tion on social media for election interference.”612 

On WeChat, a letter instructing votes in Australia

In December 2017, in the context of a local election in the Bennelong district, in New South 

Wales, which is the district with the highest proportion of residents of Chinese descent (21%), 

a letter calling to vote for the Labor candidate and to defeat the Liberal Party (described as “an-

ti-Chinese”) was circulated along with a call to “overthrow” the Turnbull government. This let-

ter, which was not signed, was nonetheless widely shared on WeChat by Yan Zehua, Australian 

citizen of Chinese descent and vice-president of the Australian branch of the Council for the 

Promotion of Peaceful Reunification of China, an organization of the United Front.613

Extract of the letter shared on WeChat. Source: James Elton-Pym, “Bennelong Letter Urges Chinese Voters to 

Vote for Keneally, says Liberals are ‘Opposed to China,’” SBSNews (14 Dec. 2017).

612. Nathan Beauchamp-Mustafaga and Michael S. Chase, Borrowing a Boat Out to Sea: The Chinese Military’s Use of 

Social Media for Influence Operations, Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, Foreign Policy Institute, 

Policy Papers (2019), 82.

613. Nick O’Malley and Alex Joske, “Mysterious Bennelong letter urges Chinese Australians to ‘take down’ the 

Turnbull government,” The Sydney Morning Herald (13 Dec. 2017).

270

VI. Education

The economic dependence vis-à-vis China, the freedom of expression on campuses and 

the role of Confucius Institutes, are topics that have increasingly worried universities across 

the world and that, in some countries like Australia, have been debated beyond academic 

circles. They have been deemed matters of national interests. 

A. Universities 

It is fairly easy to understand why foreign universities are one of the main targets of 

Chinese influence operations: “the CCP has a deep understanding of the importance 

of ideas and ideological struggle in the contest for political power, so ideas and 

those who generate them are a central target of the CCP’s influence work.”614

1. Financial dependence vis-à-vis China

Third preferred destination in the world for international students, after the United 

States and the United Kingdom, Australia is, by far, the country that welcomes the most 

students as a proportion of its population (1,559 for 100,000 inhabitants, compared to 653 

for the United Kingdom, 517 for Canada, 379 for France and 304 for the United States).615 

International students are very important for Australia, as the revenues they bring (tuition 

fees, contributions to the economy), tens of billions of Australian dollars, represent the 

third source of revenues for the country in the export market, after minerals. 

And Chinese students represent, by far, the first contingent (60% on average for 

the eight most prestigious Australian universities, even 69% for the University of Sydney, 

66% at the University of New South Wales, and 56% at the University of Melbourne).616 

In some programs and classes, they even represent a strong majority of students, with pos-

sible adverse effects: when 80% of the students are Chinese, as is the case in some MBAs, 

other students are dissuaded from attending (young Australians choose North America or 

Europe instead), insofar as everyone speaks Chinese in class and it is of lesser interest in 

terms of networking, which is one of the main motivations for this kind of program.

In any case Chinese students generated AUS$534 million (€340 million) at the University 

of Sydney (23% of its total revenue) in 2017, 446 million (€285 million) at the University 

of New South Wales (22 %) and 410 million (€262 million) at the University of Melbourne 

(16 %).617 In other words, in some cases, close to a quarter of their revenues comes from 

Chinese students, without counting funding from Chinese companies. These proportions 

have made universities – some more than others – dependent on Chinese students. It is 

even more salient with the decreasing public subsidies from the government. 

However, after an uninterrupted growth since 2010 (about +10% per year on average), 

the number of study permits delivered to Chinese has stagnated between 2017 and 2018, 

before decreasing between 2018 and 2019 (-3.3%). This tendency stems from various fac-

614. Hamilton, “Chinese Communist Party Influence in Australian Universities.”

615. Salvatore Babones, The China Student Boom and the Risks It Poses to Australian Universities, CIS China and Free 

Societies, The Centre for Independent Studies, Analysis Paper 5 (2019), 22.

616. Eryk Bagshaw, Fergus Hunter, and Sanghee Liu, “‘Chinese Students Will Not Go There:’ Beijing Education 

Agents Warn Australia,” The Sydney Morning Herald (10 Jun. 2020).

617. Babones, The China Student Boom and the Risks It Poses to Australian Universities, 29.

271

tors, including the development, and thus increased attractiveness, of Chinese universities, 

but also the bilateral tensions since 2017-2018 – approximately when Australia became 

more cognizant to the “existential” threat that China’s influence represents (→ p. 544). 

This dependence on Chinese students in Australian universities is, in fact, representative 

of Australia’s overall dependence to China. It is similar to how Beijing weaponizes the num-

ber of tourists in some areas (→ p. 405); it uses students to pressure Australia. In June 

2020, the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued a warning advising Chinese students 

not to go to Australia due to Covid-19-related risks, but also to the “racial discrimination” 

they presumably face in the country.618 The economic consequences of a drastic fall in the 

number of Chinese students in Australia have created pressing concerns in the country, for 

which the only solution is to break the dependency – in other words, to diversify (→ p. 273).

The Australian case is the most spectacular, but is far from being the only one. Other 

countries, including the United Kingdom, Canada, and the United States, are fac-

ing the same problem. The United Kingdom does not have such a big Chinese diaspora 

(0.7% of the population),619 but its main vulnerability regarding influence resides precisely 

in the fact that its universities welcome “more Chinese students than the rest of Europe 

combined.”620 The financial dependence toward Chinese students increased throughout the 

last decade. Since 2014-15, their number went from 89,540 to 120,385, a 34% increase in 

five years.621 It is, by far, the largest non-European student group (three times more than 

Indians). About fifteen universities earn over a fifth of their income from them. According 

to the Global Times, the United Kingdom has become a more popular destination than the 

United States for Chinese students.622 Just like everywhere else, the richest schools, such 

as Oxford or Cambridge, have the resources to resist and Beijing has more leverage on 

universities where Chinese students are the most numerous, Nottingham and the LSE for 

instance. The situation is similar in the United States (329,000 Chinese students in 2017, 

over five times more than ten years ago)623 and in Canada (→ p. 567). 

Essentially, this financial dependence, sometimes reinforced by the presence of a 

Confucius Institute (→ p. 299), renders these universities less susceptible to resist 

Chinese influence operations. On the contrary, it pushes them to actively partici-

pate in self-censorship, to avoid saying or doing things that displease Beijing. “We don’t 

bite the hand that feeds us,” replied the hierarchy of a professor at an Australian uni-

versity when he expressed his concerns about the safety of Hong Kong students.624 All 

the more so since, within its dissuasion arsenal, Beijing has other ways to pressure them, 

including cyberattacks. The attack that targeted the Australian National University (ANU) 

in Canberra at the end of 2018, revealed in June 2019, and that allowed the responsible 

parties to steal the personal information of thousands of students and staff members, was 

not officially attributed, but its target and degree of sophistication presupposed a level of 

skills that only a few states had. 

618. https://twitter.com/globaltimesnews/status/1270243896069459968.

619. “Ethnicity and religion statistics,” Institute of Race Relations (https://irr.org.uk/research/statistics/

ethnicityand-religion/).

620. Charles Parton, China-UK Relations: Where to Draw the Border Between Influence and Interference? Royal United 

Services Institute for Defence and Security Studies (RUSI), Occasional Paper (Feb. 2019), 13.

621. Branwen Jeffreys, “UK Universities See Boom in Chinese Students,” BBC News (21 Jan. 2020).

622. Chen Xi and Ji Yuqiao, “More Chinese Students Want to Study in UK than US: Survey,” Global Times (2 Jul. 

2020). 

623. Stephanie Saul, “On Campuses Far from China, Still Under Beijing’s Watchful Eye,” The New York Times (4 

May 2017).

624. Grégory Plesse, “Les universités australiennes sous influence chinoise” (“Australian universities under Chinese 

influence”), Le Figaro, June 30, 2021. 

272

Two cases at Charles University, the oldest University in Central Europe

The prestigious Charles University in Czech Republic, the oldest in Central Europe, was the 

target of at least two Chinese influence operations. 

– The Balabán case. In 2015, a Chinese-Czech center was created at Charles University, in 

Prague, with Miloš Balabán as secretary general. He was not entirely unknown to the Czech 

security and intelligence service (BIS), which, in their 2013 annual report, noted that the 9th 

Prague Security conference, organized by Balabán, showcased a certain leniency regarding 

the activities of Russian and Chinese intelligence services but an eagerness to denounce the 

activities of the Czechs’ American ally.625 In 2015, Balabán, who was cumulating his new po-

sition at the China-Czech center with that of director of another of the university’s research 

center, the Center for Security Policy, created a private namesake company (Center for Security 

Policy). Through this private company, China financed the annual conferences of the China-

Czech center in 2018 and 2019, for approximately €47,000. The objective of the financial ar-

rangement was apparently caution, enabling Balabán to not mention the Chinese money when 

questioned on how the 2019 conference was funded: it was paid by the China-Czech center 

(€20,000) and other participants (€2,300), he replied, omitting to highlight that China was its 

main contributor (€23,500).626 When it was revealed, Balabán resigned from both centers at the 

university. It was later uncovered that in 2018, Balabán had volunteered a university course on 

the BRI, which he co-taught, and at the end of which the eight best students were offered a 

free trip to China through the Bridge for the Future program. The class was allegedly invoiced 

not to the university but, through his private company, to the Embassy of China, who paid 

him €2,700.627

– The PPF case. PPF (První Privatizační Fond) is an important Czech financial group, “the 

richest private company in the Czech Republic,”628 which owns Home Credit, a company 

that makes most of its profit in China. It seems, however, that Beijing had put a condition 

to its access to the Chinese market: an improvement of the relationships between the Czech 

Republic and China. For that reason, and to convince Beijing, PPF worked hard to “help flip 

the government’s anti-communist foreign policy into a pro-China one.” They notably “ar-

ranged a Beijing visit by Czech President Milos Zeman in 2014, even supplying a private jet to 

fly him back.”629 The efforts paid off: that same year, Home Credit was granted access to the 

Chinese market, with important financial benefits. At the start of October 2019, Home Credit 

offered to sponsor Charles University if it signed an agreement to “not hurt PPF’s global 

interests,” which essentially “translated that the university would have to stop all criticisms 

toward China.” However, “Charles University has many influential critics of China in its staff, 

including Martin Hala and his organization Sinopsis, an institution that has examined and ex-

posed the Czech Republic’s questionable dealings with Beijing. Within days of learning about 

Home Credit’s sponsorship agreement with Charles University, students, faculty and Czech 

media lambasted the university’s leadership, prompting Home Credit to withdraw its offer and 

the head of the university to publicly apologize for his role in the matter.”630

625. BIS, Annual Report of the Security Information Service for 2013, (2014), 11.

626. Alžběta Bajerová, “The Czech-Chinese Centre of Influence: How Chinese Embassy in Prague Secretly Funded 

Activities at the Top Czech University,” China Observers (7 Nov. 2019).

627. Ibid.

628. Rob Schmitz, “China’s Influence in the Czech Republic,” NPR (31 Oct. 2019).

629. Ibid.

630. Ibid.

273

Aware of their vulnerabilities, Australian universities and the government are organizing 

themselves. In August 2019, they created a University Foreign Interference Taskforce with 

government and university representatives. This group published guidelines for Australian 

universities in November. To reduce the Chinese influence, they generally encouraged 

the diversification of students (such as Indian students, whose enrollment has increased 

a lot recently, although it remains far from the volume represented by the Chinese – they 

are also less solvent; Australia being on the same segment as the United Kingdom, Brexit 

could benefit Australian universities by redirecting a part of the flow of Indian students), 

increased subsidies from the government and Australian businesses; and red-lined 

strategic topics (AI, quantum computing, engineering – but it generated a debate, insofar 

as, due to the Chinese head start there, depriving the country of such collaborations could 

be scientifically damaging).

Finally, it should be remembered that the financial pressure – without necessarily going 

as far as dependence – is exerted via the income generated not only by the presence 

of Chinese students but also by Chinese funding for laboratories, research, events or 

teaching programs, especially in Chinese language. In Germany, for example, the Free 

University of Berlin signed a contract with Hanban (the Chinese organization that manages 

Confucius Institutes → p. 299) granting it nearly €500,000 over five years to train some 20 

Chinese language teachers each year. The contract contains clauses allowing Beijing to exert 

political pressure on the content of the teaching, notably by offering the Chinese side the 

possibility of reducing or suspending its financing if it considers that certain elements of 

the program are contrary to Chinese law, or of revoking the contract with more advanta-

geous conditions than if the university does.631 There are many more or less formalized 

and binding agreements. In a small country like Slovakia, which is part of a region (the 

Visegrád group, and more broadly Central and Eastern Europe) that is strategic for Beijing 

(→ p. 310), no less than 113 formal relationships have been identified between Chinese 

entities (universities but also other organizations such as the Chinese Academy of Social 

Sciences or Hanban, and companies such as Huawei and ZTE), and Slovak universities and 

research institutes. The peak was reached in 2016-2017, with ten new agreements signed 

yearly.632 

2. Academic freedom and freedom of expression on campuses

Many of the hundreds of thousands of Chinese students on foreign campus are nation-

alists. In Australia for instance, “the vast majority of them are Chinese government sup-

porters.”633 And some have been particularly zealous and aggressive, if not violent. They 

create problems, particularly, but not only, by attempting to restrict academic liberties and 

freedom of expression in the university community, starting with that of their Chinese 

peers. It is important to emphasize that this latter attitude only concerns a minority of 

them – especially since some Chinese students choose these countries precisely because 

they want to escape the Chinese regime, at least temporarily, breathe a little, and taste the 

freedom offered by democracies. The primary objective of this active minority is to 

631. David Matthews, “Chinese contract with German university criticized,” Times Higher Education, February 7, 

2020.

632. Matej Šimalčík and Adam Kalivoda, China’s inroads into Slovak universities: Protecting academic freedoms from 

authoritarian malign interference, CEIAS and Friedrich Naumann Foundation for Freedom, December 2020, 8-9.

633. Vicky Xiuzhong Xu, “Blinkered Chinese Nationalists Are Trolling Me – but Once I Was One of Them,” 

Sydney Morning Herald (20 Aug. 2019).

274

prevent their peers from accessing these liberties, the democratic values and free-

dom that could, in the mind of the CCP, corrupt them. 

a. Surveillance and intimidation of Chinese students. 

Chinese students abroad are one of the priority targets identified by Xi Jinping 

at the United Front Work Conference in 2015 (with the New Media, young entrepreneurs 

and intellectuals not members of the Party).634 The reason is simple: “the CCP makes 

extensive efforts to keep overseas students in line partly because it is anxious that 

they may be ‘infected’ by Western ideas.”635 They are, as such, constantly monitored by 

others among them. In South Korea where about 40% of foreign students are Chinese, 

“there is a saying among the teachers: ‘at least one of your Chinese students is an 

informant.’”636 It is likely true. Chinese studying abroad, in the United States, in Australia, 

or elsewhere, revealed that their parents in China had been informed and questioned on the 

fact that their child had gone to a class in which they had said this or that. The director of 

Human Rights Watch for China mentioned the case of a graduated student who spoke of 

something in a closed seminar on the campus of an American university, and two days later, 

his parents in China received a visit from the Ministry of Public Security “asking why their 

kid had brought up these touchy topics that were embarrassing to China in a classroom in 

the U.S.”637 This is the proof that informants in class do not only protest to attempt to 

influence class materials and campus activities, but in fact partake in a practical and 

permanent surveillance, relay these information (who said what, where, and in front of 

whom) to the authorities, likely through the consulate or the embassy, who then relay them 

to Beijing for potential measures to be taken, in the form of pressure on the parents – the 

whole circuit happening in 48 hours, which indicates a rather well-oiled system. 

This puts the teachers in an ethical dilemma, explained Kevin Carrico, who teaches 

China studies at Monash University in Australia: on the one hand, as a teacher in a free 

country, he does not want to make concessions on the content; on the other hand, what he 

says in class, or what his students say in class, is surveilled and relayed to Chinese authorities 

and the families. How to protect students without compromising on the content?638 

Surveillance is also constant outside the classroom, especially during demonstra-

tions. Chinese students, some of whom have chosen Australia to enjoy greater freedom, 

are watched as if they were still in China, primarily by some of their peers, but also by 

embassy and consulate officials and numerous party-related organizations. Here is a typical 

student testimony: “When I came to Australia, I thought I would finally be able to demon-

strate freely. During [a] demonstration [in Melbourne, against the treatment of Chinese 

doctors and journalists who tried to alert the public about Covid-19], someone took my 

picture, which later ended up on WeChat. Then I got a video call from my parents, who 

were at the police station. The policeman told me that I had to go back to China and turn 

myself in, that what I had done was illegal and anti-Chinese.” The student does not dare to 

go back home anymore and she has “also stopped talking to [her] parents to avoid putting 

them in danger.”639

634. “习近平：巩固发展最广泛的爱国统一战线” (“Xi Jinping: Let Us Consolidate and Develop the Largest 

United Front”), Xinhua (20 May 2015), https://archive.vn/DI6Qw.

635. Hamilton, “Chinese Communist Party Influence in Australian Universities.”

636. Meeting between one of the authors and a Korean academic, in Seoul (Apr. 2019). 

637. Elizabeth Redden, “China’s ‘Long Arm,’” Inside Higher Ed (3 Jan. 2018).

638. Ibid.

639. Plesse, “Les universités australiennes sous influence chinoise.” 

275

Intimidation is even stronger with regard to at least two categories of students. 

On the one hand, scholarship recipients (in France, for example, there are 1,400 schol-

arship recipients out of 30,000 Chinese students640), because they are financially dependent 

on Beijing and therefore cannot refuse anything to the embassy or the Party. On the other 

hand, minority students (notably Uyghurs and Tibetans) and/or protest movements 

(such as the pro-democracy movement in Hong Kong). And this is true no matter where 

in the world they are. The Party manages to exert pressure on them, most often via their 

relatives, their parents, who remain in China. A Uyghur student at a university in western 

France explained: “The [Chinese] police ask me what I’m doing [by e-mail and telephone], 

whether I’ve participated in activities, whether I see other Uyghurs. I have to keep send-

ing copies of my documents, taking pictures of myself in front of my college. If I don’t 

answer, they come to my parents’ house in Xinjiang.”641

On campuses, intimidation frequently goes as far as physical aggression. Over 

the summer 2019, the Hong Kong crisis reached Australian and New Zealander universi-

ties. Several times, particularly on the campuses of Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Hobart 

and Auckland, the same scenario repeated itself: pacific demonstrations of pro-Hong Kong 

democracy students were interrupted by pro-Beijing students yelling nationalist songs, such 

as “China is great,” and ripping signs and posters. It sometimes escalated, particularly on 

the campus of the University of Queensland (UQ), in Brisbane, where 300 pro-Beijing 

students physically attacked the pro-democracy protestors, dealing hits, before the police 

intervened. The Chinese consulate later issued a statement praising the “patriotic 

behavior” of the students, which led to a reaction from the minister of Defense, calling 

foreign diplomats to not interfere. In fact, UQ has strong ties to the consulate: the consul 

himself was appointed guest professor that same month (July 2019).642 Moreover, pro-Bei-

jing actors use WeChat groups to mobilize people before pro-democracy gatherings they 

are aware of, to fight “the separatist forces to the end” and “never make a concession.”643

Harassment also takes place online: pro-democracy students are targeted by hate 

campaigns and frequently threatened. Drew Pavlou, a 20-year-old UQ student, and one of 

the main organizers of pro-democracy protests in favor of Hong Kong, received dozens 

of death threats. In a message, a user told him he would hire an assassin in the Deep Web 

to kill his family (picture below). Others had their “driver’s license, marriage certificate, stu-

dent ID and other identifying information published on Chinese social media site Weibo”644 

– this practice, called doxing, is developed in a separate section (→ p. 397).

640. Ibid. 

641. Laurence Defranoux, “Les profs et étudiants chinois enrôlés dans la ‘guerre d’opinion’ menée par Pékin” 

(“Chinese teachers and students enlisted in Beijing’s ‘war of opinion’”), Libération (27 Jul. 2021). 

642. A. Odysseus Patrick and Emanuel Stoakes, “China’s Influence on Campus Chills Free Speech in Australia, 

New Zealand,” The Washington Post (9 Aug. 2019).

643. Ibid.

644. Anne Kruger, “Harassment and Hate Speech are Spilling Over from the Hong Kong Protests Through Social 

Media” (First Draft) (15 Aug. 2019).

276

Threats received by Drew Pavlou in 2019.645

b. Intimidation of professors and university administrators 

Chinese students are not the only ones targeted. Professors, university administra-

tors, and staff members are also constantly surveilled and intimidated to make sure 

that life on the campus, including teachings and research programs, is compliant with the 

CCP’s line. 

In the American case, a detailed report of the Wilson Center noted in 2018 that “a small 

number of PRC students have infringed on the academic freedom of American university 

faculty, students, administrators, and staff in recent years by: demanding the removal of 

research, promotional and decorative materials involving [considered by the PRC as] sen-

sitive content from university spaces; demanding faculty alter their language or teaching 

materials involving [considered by the PRC as] sensitive content on political rather than 

645. Sources: https://twitter.com/DrewPavlou/status/1162576118177660929; https://twitter.com/DrewPavlou/

status/1253283434744565760; https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2020-12-21/student-australia-china-xi-

jinping-uighurs-muslims; https://www.laroutedelasoie-editions.com/notre-catalogue/revue-dialogue-chine-france/.

277

evidence-based grounds; interrupting and heckling other members of the university com-

munity who engage in critical discussion of China; and pressuring universities to cancel 

academic activities involving [considered by the PRC as] sensitive content. PRC students 

have also acted in ways that concerned or intimidated faculty, staff, and other students at 

American universities by: monitoring people and activities on campus involving [consid-

ered by the PRC as] sensitive content; probing faculty for information in a suspicious man-

ner; and engaging in intimidation, abusive conduct, or harassment of other members of the 

university community.”646 This description is valid for all the countries where universities 

welcome a relatively important number of Chinese students. 

The University of New South Wales censored itself under Chinese pressure

On July 31, 2020, the University of New South Wales 

(UNSW) published a quote from a professor at the univer-

sity (who was also director of Human Rights Watch 

Australia), on its Twitter account, to “bring attention to the 

fast escalation of the situation in Hong Kong.” This tweet 

brought about protests from Chinese students, who were 

particularly numerous in this university where they amount-

ed to close to a quarter of total enrollments, 69% of inter-

national students, and whose tuition fees equalled 22% of 

the university’s budget (which, in addition, had important 

deals, approximating AUS$60 million (€38 million), with 

Chinese companies). This power unbalance quickly pushed 

the university to its first concession, tweeting a few hours 

later that “the opinions expressed by our academics do not 

always represent the views of UNSW,” before deleting 

both tweets. The original article where the quote was taken 

from was also removed from the website – after Chinese 

students asked the embassy to pressure the university. 

According to the Global Times, deleting the tweets was not 

enough to calm the students, who asked the university to 

publish an apology.647 This deletion quickly became a national polemic, with MPs, along with 

the minister for education, considering that this self-censorship infringed on the freedom of 

expression and on academic freedom (which should be particularly protected in universities). 

It is another example of the unacceptable influence of China on Australian campuses.648

Notably, any link with the Dalai Lama causes a systematic reaction. This is true 

for countries (following a visit by the Dalai Lama in Copenhagen in 2009, Beijing froze its 

bilateral relations with Denmark until the government issued a statement defending that 

Denmark “was opposed to Tibet’s independence”), but also universities. When in 2009, 

the University of Calgary granted the title of doctor honoris causa to the Dalai Lama, the 

Chinese government retaliated by removing the university from its list of school recog-

nized by China, which caused the departure of many Chinese students, fearing they would 

not find a job in China because their degrees at the University of Calgary were no longer 

recognized. Punished during two years, the University was recertified in 2011.649 When in 

646. Anastasia Lloyd-Damnjanovic, A Preliminary Study of PRC Political Influence and Interference Activities in American 

Higher Education, Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, Washington DC (2018), 1-2.

647. Zhao Yusha, “Australian University Under Attack for Article ‘Interfering’ HK Affairs,” Global Times (1 Aug. 

2020). 

648. Max Walden and Stephen Dziedzic, “UNSW Under Fire for Deleting Social Media Posts Critical of China 

over Hong Kong,” ABC News (3 Aug. 2020).

649. “UCalgary Regains Accredition in China,” Maclean’s (4 Apr. 2011). 

278

2017 the University of California in San Diego invited the Dalai Lama to give a conference, 

the Chinese students of the university protested. On WeChat, the local CSSA (→ p. 280) 

posted a statement saying they had asked for advice from the Chinese consulate and nego-

tiated with the university’s executive body to cancel the event. On Facebook, they posted no 

less than 1,600 comments, some of which accused the Dalai Lama of being a “terrorist.”650 

The university did not yield, which led to an aggressive article in the Global Times suggesting 

that the Chinese authorities might not deliver a visa to the president of this university or 

recognize its degrees.651 A few months later, the China Scholarship Council (国家留学基

金管理委员会) froze all scholarship funding for Chinese students who wished to study at 

the University of California in San Diego (see image below). 

Statement of September 12, 2017 sent by the China Scholarship Council informing 

the scholarship freeze toward the University of California in San Diego.652

When, in 2016, in France, INALCO (the National Institute for Eastern Languages 

and Civilizations) invited the Dalai Lama to give a conference, the university “received 

official letters from the Embassy of China demanding that the invitation be rescinded,” 

always with the barely veiled threat that what was at stake was “maintaining good rela-

tions between INALCO and China.” “They also came twice […] they are less sub-

tle orally,” explained Françoise Robin, an INALCO professor.653 All in vain, because 

INALCO did not cede – contrary to Sciences Po, who had planned to host him as 

well but “cancelled his visit after an intervention of the Embassy of China.”654 At the 

INALCO event, its president, Manuelle Frank, was even “on stage during the whole 

conference, even though the embassy had urged her no to.”655 This time, there was no 

sanction. 

These interventions are not aimed at exceptional guests like the Dalai Lama only: they 

are commonplace in university life, including in France, as Jean-Philippe Béja, emeritus 

director of research at the CNRS and researcher at the Centre for International Studies 

and Research (CERI) at Sciences Po, explains: “For the past three or four years, Chinese 

650. Elizabeth Redden, “Chinese Students vs. Dalai Lama,” Inside Higher Ed (16 Feb. 2017). 

651. Liu Jianxi, “US University Fails to Teach Students Correct History of Tibet,” Global Times (20 Jun. 2017).

652. To a colleague of Professor Victor Shih: https://twitter.com/vshih2/status/908974180711960577/photo/1.

653. Jérémy André, “Comment la Chine pousse ses pions à l’université” (“How China Pushes Its Pawns at the 

University”), Le Point, 2532 (25 Feb. 2021), 46-50 (for the four quotes).

654. “Le dalaï lama en France, sans temps mort ni contact en haut lieu,” (“The Dalai Lama in France, Without 

Pause… or High-Level Contacts”), La Croix (12 Sept. 2016).

655. André, “Comment la Chine pousse ses pions à l’université.” 

279

students, often Communist Youth cadres, have been coming to disrupt our confer-

ences. They are probably sent by the embassy. Others do it to make themselves look good 

to the authorities.”656

c. The role of Chinese diplomats

Nationalist Chinese students are not the only actors involved: Chinese diplomats often 

give them a hand. In the United States for instance, diplomats have notably “infringed on 

the academic freedom of American university faculty, students, administrators, and 

staff by complaining to universities about invited speakers and events; pressuring and/or 

offering inducements to faculty whose work involves content deemed sensitive by the PRC 

authorities.” They have also “infringed on the personal safety of people at American 

universities by probing faculty and staff for information in a manner consistent with intel-

ligence collection; and employing intimidating modes of conversation.”657 

When they do not intervene directly, diplomats at least collect data. In Japan, for instance, 

where there are only 115,000 Chinese students, who are also less active than in the pre-

viously mentioned countries, the embassy keeps a file on students, asking incoming 

Chinese students to register to send them messages. It also gives instructions: some of 

these students received an order to befriend Taiwanese students, to seduce them, to invite 

them to China, to help them find a job, etc.658 

In all cases, it ultimately questions the link between students and Chinese authorities. 

It is certain that “Chinese students are becoming even more assertive and aggres-

sive, taking advantage of the freedom of their host countries, and operating with 

increasingly open support from the Chinese authorities,” as explained by Rowena He, 

professor at St Michael’s College in Vermont.659 And yet, what does this support entail? 

When they surveil, inform, intimidate, and protest, do students simply express their patri-

otism spontaneously or are they more or less guided by the authorities, via the embassies 

and consulates? This is a crucial question insofar as, in the former case, the host country’s 

universities and authorities cannot do much besides stressing and enforcing limits inherent 

to the freedom of expression (which does not cover harassment, hate speech, death threats 

and physical aggressions) while, in the latter case, it involves a blatant interference. 

However, the fact that a counter-demonstration is not aligned with the values of the 

host country, and provokes the indignation of the universities and authorities, does not 

mean that it is necessarily organized by China’s agents. In fact, it is hard to tell whether 

the actions of Chinese students are, in general, spontaneous or guided, first of all 

because “in general” does not apply here – all cases are specific; second, because most of 

the Chinese students have internalized the constraint even before they arrived in the 

country where they study. As Dirk Van der Kley explained: “there is enough patriotism and 

pride among Chinese students that these kinds of things are going to happen frequently, 

even without [the Chinese] government direction.”660 “They are even more indoctrinated 

than before,” added an interlocutor in Stockholm, “the embassies and consulates do not 

even need to control them, they’re programmed.”661 In many cases, however, it is pos-

656. Ibid. 

657. Lloyd-Damnjanovic, A Preliminary Study of PRC Political Influence, 1-2.

658. Meeting of the authors in Tokyo (Mar. 2019). 

659. Redden, “China’s ‘Long Arm.’”

660. Frances Mao, “Hong Kong Protests: ‘I’m in Australia but I feel censored by Chinese students,’” BBC (31 Jul. 

2019).

661. Meeting of one of the authors in Stockholm (Feb. 2020).

280

sible to demonstrate a command-and-control relationship between students and Chinese 

authorities, via the CSSAs, the embassies and consulates. This is developed in the following 

pages and in the case studies (→ p. 568). 

3. Student Associations (CSSA)

In most universities in the world with a notable share of Chinese students, there is a local 

branch of the Chinese Student and Scholars Association (CSSA, 中国学生学者联合

会). For instance, there are 265 CSSAs in American universities for about 300,000 Chinese 

students.662 Under a façade of solidarity and kindness (they help the arriving Chinese stu-

dents to adapt to their new environment, to find housing, roommates, etc.), the CSSAs 

are in fact preferred platforms for United Front activities.663 They not only serve to 

maintain a certain control over Chinese students abroad, but also to mobilize them if 

necessary to defend China against critical opinions. 

The bubble created by CSSAs around Chinese students, under the guise of helping 

them, actually monitors and controls what they say, which is problematic for those who 

go abroad precisely to benefit from the freedom they do not have in China. They are so 

supported that “they feel they are being hosted by the Chinese government in Australia,”664 

and parents who send their children to study in Australia also to allow them to make friends 

abroad “are disappointed when they come back saying they only hang out with fellow 

Chinese students.”665

CSSAs organize campus surveillance, the denunciation of opponents or critics, 

the promotion of Beijing’s interests, the organization of demonstrations and count-

er-demonstrations; they also censor professors and conferences – or encourage self-censor-

ship. In 2017, the president of the CSSA at the University of Canberra, Lu Lupin, admitted 

that she “would inform the embassy if dissident Chinese students were organizing a human 

rights protest.”666 

They serve, in particular, as intermediaries for the authorities when they need to mobi-

lize thousands or even tens of thousands of students for events, such as welcom-

ing Chinese political leaders visiting the country, or to counter dissident protests. 

This phenomenon is not new. In 2008, 20,000 Chinese students in Australia had been 

mobilized via the CSSA to welcome the Olympic Torch in Canberra – and, in passing, 

they “intimidated and punched protesters supporting Tibetan independence.”667 Similarly, 

Xi Jinping’s welcome party in Washington in September 2015, with hundreds of Chinese 

students aligned in the street and waving flags, was not spontaneous: the embassy went 

through CSSAs to recruit 700 students, paid $20 each (remuneration distributed by CSSAs 

a few months later) and, during the event, diplomats were in direct contact with them via 

662. Didi Kirsten Tatlow, “Exclusive: 600 U.S. Groups Linked to Chinese Communist Party Influence Effort with 

Ambition Beyond Election,” Newsweek (26 Oct. 2020).

663. Alexander Bowe, “China’s Overseas United Front Work: Background and Implications for the United States,” 

Staff Research Report, U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission (24 Aug. 2018), 10-12; Alex Joske, 

“The party Speaks for You: Foreign Interference and the Chinese Communist Party’s United Front System,” Australian 

Strategic Policy Institute, Policy brief, 32 (2020), 30.

664. John Fitzgerald, quoted in John Garnaut, “Chinese Spies at Sydney University,” Sidney Morning Herald (21 Apr. 

2014).

665. Hamilton, “Chinese Communist Party Influence in Australian Universities.”

666. Alex Joske and Wu Lebao, “The Truth about the Chinese Students and Scholars Association,” Woroni (12 Oct. 

2017). 

667. Hamilton, “Chinese Communist Party Influence in Australian Universities.”

281

WeChat, “responding to messages as late as 3 a.m.”668 As reminded by Bethany Allen-

Ebrahimian, this is far from being the only example of paid student mobilizations orches-

trated via CSSAs. In the U.S. (there are other examples elsewhere), it happened for Xi’s visit 

in February 2012, when he was vice-president (the embassy transfered the funds promised 

to George Washington University’s CSSA only one year later), and in Chicago for the visit 

of Hu Jintao in 2011.669 The Chinese Embassy in Australia also “trained hundreds of CSSA 

members,” and “divided [them] into ‘security squads’” during the visit of Prime Minister 

Li Keqiang in March 2017.670

Students are encouraged to commit to the CSSAs in order to please Chinese diplomats 

at the embassy and/or consulates and obtain scholarships, recommendation letters, fund-

ing for extracurricular activities, and invitations to events.671 There are many testimonies 

of students undergoing pressure from a CSSA to dissuade them from doing this, or on 

the contrary, encourage them to do that. The permanent surveillance exerted by the 

CSSAs on other students is meant to be dissuasive: its impact is translated less in terms 

of sanctions impacting a few individuals but rather, in practice, by the fact that all Chinese 

students are careful about what they say in public, explained Perry Link, professor at the 

University of California – Riverside.672 

This is an “essential element of the propaganda and a guarantee of Chinese patriotism 

abroad.”673 According to Chen Yonglin, a Chinese diplomat who defected in Australia in 

2005, CSSAs “are in fact controlled by the Chinese mission and are an extension 

of the Chinese communist regime overseas.”674 The general association is financed in 

part by the Chinese government,675 and “these organizations live in great part thanks to the 

subsidies from the PRC delegations abroad.”676 Many CSSAs admit on their websites being 

“registered with, or even subsidized by the local Chinese Embassy or consulate.”677 Cornell 

University’s CSSA, for instance, noted on its website that it is “the ONLY Chinese student 

organization officially supported by Embassy of People’s Republic of China at Cornell 

University.”678 This financial relation is more or less assumed: some CSSAs do not hide 

it, others visibly regret having spoken about it (see picture below). Perhaps for discretion’s 

sake, the money provided by the Chinese authorities is sometimes wired not to the official 

CSSA account, but to the treasurer’s personal account or to another undeclared account: 

hence, the university’s administration does not know that a student organization 

on its campus receives funds from a foreign government, which, in the United States 

for instance, enables them to go below the radar of the Foreign Agents Registration Act 

(FARA).679

668. Bethany Allen-Ebrahimian, “China’s Long Arm Reaches into American Campuses,” Foreign Policy (7 Mar. 

2018).

669. Ibid.

670. Joske and Lebao, “The truth about the Chinese Students and Scholars Association.”

671. J. Manthorpe, Claws of the Panda: Beijing’s Campaign of Influence and Intimidation in Canada (Toronto: Cormorant 

Books, 2019), 188.

672. Saul, “On Campuses Far from China, Still Under Beijing’s Watchful Eye.”

673. De Pierrebourg and Juneau-Katsuya, Ces espions venus d’ailleurs, 206.

674. Manthorpe, Claws of the Panda, 189.

675. Charles Parton, China-UK Relations: Where to Draw the Border Between Influence and Interference? Royal United 

Services Institute for Defence and Security Studies (RUSI), Occasional Paper (Feb. 2019), 15.

676. De Pierrebourg and Juneau-Katsuya, Ces espions venus d’ailleurs, 206.

677. Hamilton, “Chinese Communist Party Influence in Australian Universities.”

678. https://www.cornellcssa.info/about-us (https://archive.vn/ipRlM). 

679. Allen-Ebrahimian, “China’s Long Arm Reaches into American Campuses.”

282

Source: https://twitter.com/shawnwzhang/status/964605758024265728.

“Most of CSSA operate under the guidance of Chinese embassies and consulates”680; in 

fact, the People’s Daily wrote in 2013 that CSSAs in Australia “accomplish their mission […] 

under the direct guidance of the Embassy’s Education Office.”681 The point of con-

tact for the students is usually the person in charge of education at the consulate,682 given 

that the Ministry for Education has many links with the United Front Work Department 

(UFWD) – as illustrated by the appointment of an UFWD executive as attaché for edu-

cation in Chicago between 2013 and 2016.683 The same is true for CSSAs in the United 

Kingdom, Holland, Egypt, Singapore, but also in France.684 Korea University’s CSSA even 

admitted on its website that the eighth bureau of the UFWD was responsible for the “gen-

eral orientation of the student organizations abroad.”685 Other clues also point to links 

between CSSAs and the United Front. Several CSSAs participated in a conference in 

2015 to “study the spirit of the United Front’s work,” including CSSAs from Yale, Kyoto, 

Princeton, Rome, universities in California, Moscow and in France.686 Furthermore, CSSAs 

in the United Kingdom received a delegation from the Ministry of Education led by the 

UFWD and which counted, amongst its members, the vice-director of the 6th UFWD 

Bureau Duan Xiuyun (段秀云), who was also the vice-secretary of the China Overseas 

Friendship Association (中华海外联谊会).687 

680. Joske, “The Party speaks for you,” 30.

681. 李景卫 (Li Jingwei), “澳大利亚优秀中国学联干部奖颁发” (“Australian Outstanding CSSA Cadre Prizes 

Awarded”), People’s Daily (22 Nov. 2013), https://web.archive.org/web/20200218043850/http:/world.people.com.

cn/n/2013/1122/c1002-23631324.html), quoted in Joske, “The Party speaks for you,” 30.

682. Tatlow, “Exclusive: 600 U.S. Groups Linked to Chinese Communist Party Influence Effort with Ambition 

Beyond Election,” Newsweek (29 Oct. 2020). 

683. “覃菊华同志任驻芝加哥总领馆教育组参赞衔领事” (“The Comrade in Juhua Appointed Advisor for the 

Education Section at the Chicago Consulate”), PRC Ministry of Education website, https://archive.vn/k7kPT; “中央

统战部来校调研外事管理工作” (“The UFWD Visits the School to Inspect Foreign Affairs Management Work”), 

Huaqiao University (28 Jun. 2019), https://archive.vn/774OD.

684. “关于学联” (“About the Organization”), CSSAUK, https://archive.vn/nOKbk; “关于学联” (“About the 

Organization”), ACSSNL, https://archive.vn/88Yme; “关于学联” (“About the Organization”), CSSUE, https://

archive.vn/3usqM; “新加坡中国学者学生联合会” (“Chinese Scholars and Students Association of Singapore”), 

Baidu, https://archive.vn/iorEQ; “学联简介” (“Presentation of the Organization”), Union of Chinese Students and 

Scholars of France, https://archive.vn/V0vg5.

685. “历史沿革” (“History”), Korea University Chinese Students and Scholars Association, https://web.archive.

org/web/20190728072528/https:/www.kucssa.org/intro.

686. “海外学联学习中央统战精神工作会议召开” (“Opening of the Conference on Student Organization for 

the Study of the Spirit of the United Front Work”), 光明留学 (Guangming Liuxue) (25 May 2015), https://archive.vn/

Q1FWY.

687. “全英学联与中央统战部代表团座谈” (“Talks Between the CSSAUK and a UFWD Delegation”), 人人(Rénrén) 

(No date), https://web.archive.org/web/20190517021756/http:/blog.renren.com/share/222714759/8950960648.

283

Some nonetheless believe that “intelligence officers in diplomatic facilities are the pri-

mary point of contact for students in CSSAs”688 and that the MSS takes that opportunity 

to recruit informants, if not agents, among the students.689 Some meetings are official 

(each year, the Chinese Embassy in Australia invites all CSSA leaders in Australian univer-

sities to meetings at the embassy).690 Others, however, are clandestine: Frank Tian Xie, 

professor at the University of South Carolina, was part of the CSSA when he arrived as a 

student at Purdue University in the 1980s, and he remembered that, at the time, represen-

tatives of the Chinese consulate in Chicago met with CSSA students in motel rooms.691 For 

Fabrice de Pierrebourg and Michel Juneau-Katsuya, “the embassies’ education services are 

directly linked to Chinese secret services.”692 In fact, there are multiple evidence that some 

CSSAs have worked with or for the MSS.693 The FBI presumably documented encoun-

ters between intelligence officers and students. As early as 2005, Le Monde revealed that the 

CSSA of the Catholic University of Leuven (KUL) was involved in “a multinational net-

work of economic intelligence overseen from Belgium.”694 

Generally speaking, “CSSAs often attempt to conceal or obscure their ties to the 

Chinese government, frequently omitting incriminating language from the English ver-

sions of their websites – the ones typically reviewed by university administrators.”695 The 

Chinese versions are often more revealing, sometimes oversharing: in 2017 for instance, the 

president of George Washington University’s CSSA explained in a promotional video that 

the CSSA was “directed by the Chinese Embassy” and that it “[worked] with” the embas-

sy.696 The CSSA at the Australian National University presented itself as “the only Chinese 

student organization in Canberra officially approved by the Chinese government.”697 

Chinese authorities have also expressed their gratitude, as shown by this “appreciation cer-

tificate” delivered by the consulate to a CSSA president (see below). In addition, executive 

members of Swiss CSSAs are often hired by organizations dealing with Chinese influence 

in the country, once their studies completed, which made Ralph Weber say that the “CSSA 

could also have an important role in talent recruitment.”698

688. Zach Dorfman, “How Silicon Valley Became a Den of Spies,” Politico (27 Jul. 2018). 

689. J. Manthorpe, Claws of the Panda: Beijing’s Campaign of Influence and Intimidation in Canada (Toronto: Cormorant 

Books, 2019), 39.

690. Joske and Lebao, “The truth about the Chinese Students and Scholars Association.” 

691. Saul, “On Campuses Far from China, Still Under Beijing’s Watchful Eye.”

692. De Pierrebourg and Juneau-Katsuya, Ces espions venus d’ailleurs, 204.

693. Zach Dorfman, “How Silicon Valley became a den of spies,” Politico Magazine (27 Jul. 2018).

694. Jean-Pierre Stroobants, “Une université belge pourrait abriter un réseau d’espionnage industriel chinois” (“A 

Belgian University May be Hosting a Chinese Network of Industrial Espionage”), Le Monde (10 May 2005).

695. Alexander Bowe, China’s Overseas United Front Work: Background and Implications for the United States, U.S.-China 

Economic and Security Review Commission, Staff Research Report (24 Aug. 2018), 12.

696. Ibid., 11.

697. Joske and Lebao, “The truth about the Chinese Students and Scholars Association.” 

698. Weber, “Unified message, rhizomatic delivery.” 

284

Source: https://twitter.com/YaxueCao/status/964251735945629696.

A feeling of impunity and omnipotence on foreign campuses

The Australian scholar Clive Hamilton reported that, during the summer of 2019, on the 

campus of Brisbane University in Queensland, a security guard caught three men trashing 

a “Lennon wall” put together to support Hong Kong protests. “The men refused to show 

student IDs [and] when the guard indicated he would call the police, the leader of the group 

replied: “I do not care if you call the police. I will call the Ambassador.”699 This reminded him 

of another story: four years earlier, the president of the Australian National University’s CSSA 

in Canberra asked who had “authorized” the campus pharmacy to sell the Epoch Times, journal 

of Falun Gong, and intimidated the pharmacist until he threw them away. These examples 

– and there are many more – attest of a feeling of omnipotence from some Chinese stu-

dents on foreign campuses, aware of their economic weight and, thus, of the schools’ 

dependence on them; they are also certain of the support, and encouragements, of 

Chinese authorities.