China's Increasing Influence on European Union Exposed

The Czech Republic is one of the most overt examples of Chinese attempts to sway European public opinion, with two commercial radio stations receiving content from China Radio International, a state broadcaster.

The radio stations had been broadcasting seemingly innocuous content that echoed Chinese state talking points on subjects like Taiwan, but they stopped the program after a research report was published by Ivana Karásková, a Czech academic and foreign influence specialist who is advising the European Commission.

Karásková believes that much of the EU is blind to China's influence and that awareness of this is uneven across the continent.

The European Commission is preparing to unveil a "defense of democracy" package of legislation to combat foreign attempts to undermine EU democracy and interests.

The European Commission's proposal to require foreign-funded organizations to disclose their funding sources has been criticized by nonprofit groups who say it would allow leaders like Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán to crack down on pro-democracy organizations.

The proposal has also been met with protests in Georgia, and some argue that the EU should tread carefully on the subject of foreign interference.

However, Karásková, the Czech Republic's representative to the EU, responded that autocratic countries won't wait for Europe's permission to crack down on foreign sources of funding.

She also noted that China has been increasingly funding European NGOs and think tanks to shape EU discourse, and that Beijing has been joining forces with Russian actors to promote talking points favorable to both Moscow and Beijing.

Karásková argued that the public should have access to different sources of information, but that they should also know where the funding is coming from.

"Europe is really open," she said.

"It is time not to close, but to shed light on where the financial flows are actually going and to which end."