“Four Million for Vystrčil”: Chinese Attempt at Disparaging President of Czech senate

#Domácí

Publikováno: 11.11.2020

Beijing spent months trying to prevent the second-highest-ranking Czech politician from making an official visit to Taiwan, an island that China claims to be part of its territory. Aktuálně.cz has already published a threatening note sent by the Chinese embassy that Prague Castle delivered to the then-president of the Czech Senate, Jaroslav Kubera (ODS). After his sudden death, Chinese officials began putting pressure on his successor, Miloš Vystrčil (ODS). Nonetheless, in late August, Vystrčil visited the island nation.

China threatened that Czech businesses would "pay" for the visit. According to information obtained by Aktuálně.cz, foreign organizations with connections to Beijing have begun attacking the president of the Senate. They are trying to spread disinformation in the media and on social media, claiming that Vystrčil received a clandestine payment of 4 million dollars for his historic visit from the Taiwanese to be used for a future presidential campaign. "This is a blatantly absurd lie. This disinformation that is about me, it’s the first time I have heard about it. I want to consult with experts about how to protect myself," Vystrčil informed Aktuálně.cz.

The editorial offices of Aktuálně.cz received an appeal to publish this disinformation that included a link to a related French news site. It was sent by the heads of organizations that have connections to Communist China’s propaganda organizations. This happened at a time when BIS, a Czech intelligence agency, published an annual report in which it warned against attempts by Chinese agents to influence Czech media.

The emails are signed by Michael Winkler, the director of RefinSol Advisory Services, a Swiss consulting agency, and his assistant, Robert J. Mojzes. Aktuálně.cz has determined that both men hold similar functions in other organizations. They are also behind the EurAsia Info news site, which regularly provides information about the activities of the Chinese embassy in Switzerland.

The site, for example, published a commentary piece by Michael Winkler titled "Xi Jinping: A Responsible Leader in Switzerland" in which he admires the Chinese president for "the depth of his knowledge on the historic connections between" China and Switzerland and "the clarity and soundness of his objectives" in visiting Switzerland.

Ralph Weber, a professor at the University of Basel, has long studied the connections between Swiss citizens and the Chinese government. "I am convinced that EurAsia Info has very close ties to the Chinese Communist state," says Weber,who shared with Aktuálně.cz some of the findings of his research, conducted in cooperation with Czech experts from the Sinopsis organization.

Overseas Chinese and Influence Abroad

China is known for its extensive network of diaspora organizations in the West, associated with individual provinces. These organizations, like similar ones associated with other countries, closely collaborate with embassies and diplomats, are in close contact with the Communist government in China, and serve as a tool of influence.

BIS, a Czech intelligence agency, has warned about operations involving Chinese diaspora organizations. In the spring, the agency informed the government that the Chinese embassy in Prague, with the help of Chinese citizens in the Czech Republic, had bought up facemasks and sent them to China before the coronavirus pandemic exploded in the Czech Republic. As a result, the Czech Republic had to spend hundreds of millions USD purchasing scarce protective equipment from China.

A network of diaspora organizations, which reaches from Switzerland to the Czech Republic, played a role here. According to Weber, the headquarters of the above-mentioned consulting agency and media house are located at the same address and share the same offices as an organization for overseas Chinese from Jiangxi province. All these organizations are chaired by Zhu Ailian,who, alongside Winkler and Mojzes, runs the EurAsia Info site.

In Switzerland, Zhu Ailian heads, besides the diaspora organization, the European Jiangxi Chamber of Commerce. On its website, she boasts that 140 people from across Europe, including from the Czech Republic, have supported her activities. In addition to letters of congratulations from the regional government in China, she also presents a photograph of herself with Chinese Vice President Wang Qishan. In an interview for China Daily, a Chinese newspaper that is under the direct control of the Propaganda Department of the Communist party, she expressed support for the Belt and Road Initiative.

This enormous project focused on building trade and transport infrastructure around the world is the flagship of General Secretary Xi Jinping’s foreign policy. In Central and Eastern Europe, China is trying to use this initiative to convince governments of the benefits of working with Beijing. One of its Czech proponents is President Miloš Zeman. Critics, however, warn that in reality this Asian superpower may be trying to fracture the European Union.

"European countries need initiatives like those from China to promote peace, prevent wars, promote the development of the world economy and cooperation, [and] seek cultural diversity and common prosperity," stated Zhu Ailian, in the mentioned interview for China Daily.

Her colleague Robert J. Mojzes denies any connection to organizations close to the Chinese government in his sending out of information about Vystrčil’s alleged acceptance of 4 million dollars.

"We are neither personally nor professionally involved in this case. We are mere observers with an anti-corruption mindset and do not want to be quoted as the source of this information.However, should you find the contents of the article to be plausible and newsworthy, and should you decide to publish it in one form or the other, we would be very interested in receiving a link to the potential article in question," wrote Mojzes to Aktuálně.cz.

A Czech Footprint: A Chinese Businessman from the Association for the Promotion of the Peaceful Unification of China

One of the founding members of the Swiss-based European Chamber of Commerce, headed by Zhu Ailian, is a Chinese businessman active in the Czech Republic, Li Rujiang

"Besides conducting business activities, Li is in relatively intense contact with Chinese influence organizations and part of the local Chinese diaspora with links to the embassy and Chinese state and party institutions. The most direct link is his position as the as vice chairman of the Czech Association for the Promotion of the Peaceful Unification of China, a political organization whose proclaimed goal is the annexation of Taiwan by the People’s Republic of China [mainland China]," says Filip Jirouš from Sinopsis, an organization that has long endeavoured to expose Chinese influence in the Czech Republic. Jirouš has researched the Chinese community in the Czech Republic and its links to the Chinese government’s influence apparatus.

Whether Li Rujiang knew about the Czech activities of the two men close to his colleague in Switzerland is not clear. The editors were not successful in contacting him.

The Association for the Promotion of Peaceful Unification of China is part of a global network, whose American branch was officially declared by the Department of State to be a foreign mission of the Chinese government. The association regularly issues declarations supporting Chinese policies, for example, about territorial conflicts in the South China Sea or about events in Hong Kong. It also co-organizes various events and meetings, including the Chinese New Year celebration in Prague that was attended by Vystrčil’s predecessor, Kubera, when he was deciding whether or not he would make a trip to Taiwan.

Before the celebration, he met with Chinese ambassador Zhang Jianmin, who had put much effort into making sure that Kubera did not make the trip.The former Senate president died three days later, and his wife, Věra, has blamed his death on the pressure he was under due to his planned visit to Taiwan.

Because of these activities, Li Rujiang is a key figure in the Chinese community in the Czech Republic. He organizes Chinese New Year celebrations together with his colleague, Zhou Lingjian, who found himself at the centre of a disinformation controversy this past spring, when Italian media reported that the Czech Ministry of the Interior had confiscated facemasks headed for Italy as Chinese humanitarian aid.

An investigation by Aktuálně.cz discovered that the protective equipment was being stored in Lovosice by one of the most influential members of the Chinese community in the Czech Republic, Zhou Lingjian. Zhou claims that he was sending the facemasks as a form of aid from China to Italy. How they ended up in his Czech warehouse, which lies far away from the transport route to Italy, is still not clear today. What is certain is that hundreds of thousands of facemasks ended up in the hands of a Czech middleman, who unsuccessfully tried to sell them to the Czech government with an exorbitant mark-up.