Chinese Intelligence Recruits Far-Right Belgian Senator for Espionage

On 15 Decem­ber 2023, the Finan­cial Times report­ed that Chi­nese intel­li­gence oper­a­tives recruit­ed Frank Creyel­man, a for­mer Bel­gian sen­a­tor and mem­ber of the far-right Flem­ish nation­al­ist move­ment, for an oper­a­tion tar­get­ing Euro­pean pol­i­tics. Orches­trat­ed by Daniel Woo, an offi­cer in Chi­na’s Min­istry of State Secu­ri­ty, the oper­a­tion last­ed over three years. It involved Creyel­man influ­enc­ing Euro­pean dis­cus­sions on issues such as democ­ra­cy in Hong Kong and the Uyghur sit­u­a­tion in Xin­jiang. The detailed espi­onage strat­e­gy came to light through text mes­sages exchanged between Woo and Creyel­man from 2019 to 2022, which were obtained from a West­ern secu­ri­ty source. Creyel­man, who has been part of Bel­gium’s far-right Flem­ish nation­al­ist move­ment since 1977 and served in the fed­er­al Sen­ate from 1999 to 2007, played a sig­nif­i­cant role in this oper­a­tion as a key fig­ure in Meche­len, his local city. Until ear­li­er this month, he was the leader of the Vlaams Belang par­ty in his local city, Meche­len. On 12 Decem­ber, we report­ed that Max­i­m­il­ian Krah of the Alter­na­tive for Ger­many (AfD) par­ty had been exposed for exten­sive ties to a Chi­nese influ­ence network.