Chair of Belgian Foreign Affairs Committee Claims CCP Spies Hacked Her

Els Van Hoof, chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Belgian Federal Parliament, disclosed to the media on April 25 that Chinese communist spies had breached her laptop as far back as 2021.

This marks the most recent instance of the Chinese regime engaging in espionage activities in Europe.

Ms. Van Hoof, a member of the Flemish Christian Democrats, revealed to Belgian public broadcaster VRT on Thursday that she unearthed the cyberattack through an FBI report last month, three years after it transpired.

The FBI report emerged as part of a lawsuit against 7 Chinese individuals accused of surveillance on U.S. citizens and members of the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China (IPAC). It detailed how Chinese cyber spies infiltrated Ms. Van Hoof’s laptop via an email.

IPAC, an international union of parliamentarians concentrating on human rights concerns in China, stands as a prime target of the Chinese regime.

Ms. Van Hoof shared that 400 IPAC members, including Samuel Cogolati, the vice-chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee, were compromised after opening the email in 2021. The full extent of the cyber attack’s repercussions remains unclear. Belgian security agencies have been monitoring the compromised laptops since 2021, as per the FBI report.

Regarding the motive behind the Chinese regime’s cyber attack, Ms. Van Hoof remarked to VRT, “The intention, of course, is to intimidate and silence us.”

Chung Chih-tung, an assistant research fellow at Taiwan’s Institute for National Defense and Security Research, expressed to The Epoch Times on April 27 concerning the cyber attack: “In reality, it’s not solely directed at Belgian politicians. The gathering of intelligence on certain [western] politicians will be leveraged to intimidate and threaten them in order to fulfill the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) political objectives. This showcases the Chinese communist regime’s aggressiveness stemming from its ideological struggle.”

Mr. Chung highlighted that the CCP has been spying on the West for a while, “however, in the past, Western nations were not as vigilant as they are now. With tensions between China and Western countries escalating, the CCP has ramped up its espionage activities against them.”

CCP’s Escalating Espionage on Other Countries

Earlier this year, the Dutch government also pointed fingers at the CCP for cyber espionage. The Dutch prime minister raised the issue in a meeting with CCP leader Xi Jinping during his trip to Beijing in late March.

MIVD, the military intelligence service of the Netherlands operating under the Ministry of Defense, stated in February that Chinese regime-backed cyber spies breached networks used by the Dutch Ministry of Defense.

Dutch Defense Minister Kajsa Ollongren articulated at the time: “For the first time, the MIVD has decided to make public a technical report on the working methods of Chinese hackers. It is crucial to attribute such espionage activities to China. This way, we enhance international resilience against this form of cyber espionage.”

MIVD and AIVD [the country’s general intelligence and security service] underscored in a report that the incident “is not an isolated case, but part of a broader pattern of Chinese political espionage against the Netherlands and its allies.”

Beijing has refuted all allegations of this nature.

Su Tzu-yun, researcher and director of Taiwan’s Institute for National Defense and Security Research, relayed to The Epoch Times on April 27 that Taiwan is also a target of the CCP’s cyber attacks: “In Taiwan, it has been discovered that there are WiFi receivers within stage lights. It is increasingly evident that the CCP is employing various methods to conduct espionage through electronic devices. Now, Western countries are beginning to bolster their prevention efforts [against the CCP’s cyber espionage].”

Mr. Chung cautioned that technological advancements have notably transformed the way intelligence is gathered. “Internet security has become a critical issue for Western nations. Hence, the U.S.-China trade war and technology war are essentially a different form of intelligence war,” he articulated.

Mr. Chung warned that as the West awakens to the CCP’s threats, the Chinese regime has diversified its spying methods, encompassing through the internet, exports of electronic devices, education, cultural exchange, research, and more.

“The CCP’s espionage activities are all-encompassing. In essence, every department of the CCP has the duty to gather intelligence on other nations through diverse means, contingent on the nature of their work,” Mr. Chung concluded.

Earlier this week, an aide to Maximilian Krah, a member of the European Parliament for the far-right Alternative for Germany, was arrested in Germany. The individual, of Chinese descent but holding German citizenship, faced espionage charges for China.

Luo Ya contributed to this report.