Collaboration
The Financial Times revealed that a former member of the Belgian parliament had been taking money from a Chinese operative to influence political discussions. The (pay-walled) article summarizes a text conversation history that the paper received from an intelligence source.
Frank Creyelman, whom the FT characterizes as “far-right”, was a leader in the Flemish nationalist party Vlaams Belang until the FT report came out. The party responded to the revelations:
“That would actually mean that some people are sabotaging our prosperity, our security, our democracy from within, from a party that sits in our country’s parliament, in the senate . . . A senator from Vlaams Belang being on the front page of the Financial Times — the whole world has seen that.”
Sevastopulo, Foy, Rathbone, and Leahy. “Chinese spies recruited European politician in operation to divide west”. The Financial Times. December 15 2023.
The texts reveal some of the methods and strategies employed by Chinese intelligence. For example, Creyelman would start receiving his pay in crypto through the Binance exchange, as his handler deemed it a safer way to handoff the money.
The types and kinds of “targets” were explored: less powerful people who were more China-aligned versus more powerful people who had to be talked into supporting the position desired by China.
A CIA officer is quoted saying that some of these less powerful people (lower-level bureaucrats) can have access to sensitive decision making because of their close access to senior officials.
A text from the handler, Daniel Woo, suggests how he and Creyelman would rope people into their operation: “My idea is that we assure a target person, then we think together about the ways to drag him into our cooperation.”
Brussels, where the European Union meets and where NATO is headquartered, is a target-rich environment which is safer for spies because of the relative leniency of the EU as compared with the US.
One strategy Creyelman suggests to Woo is to create a conference around a theme that would be interesting to potential targets. He tells Woo, “I can’t just say: here are some Chinese guys I want you to meet. It should have some purpose.”
Among his assignments from his Chinese handler were to find ways to attack the reputation of Adrian Zenz, who has published about the genocide of the Uyghurs and runs the Victims of Communism non-profit. Creyelman was also supposed to try to get a Catholic cardinal to help protect China from Covid criticism. He also was directed to “disrupt a conference on Taiwan”.
