‘Chinese Spy’ Claims in European Parliament Spark Claims and Counter Claims

BRUSSEL, BELGIUM - APRIL 01: A general view of the European Union and Chinese flags during
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Peter Caddle

The actions and activities of an allegedly pro-Chinese Communist Party aide within the EU parliament have sparked claims and counter-claims by party insiders.

A number of sources within the populist Alternative for Germany (AfD) party have expressed serious concerns regarding the activities of Jian Guo — an accredited assistant for one of the party’s elected members — with some alleging that he may potentially have ties to the Chinese Communist Party.

Guo currently serves as a parliamentary aide to AfD MEP Maximilian Krah, who has vehemently defended his assistant, saying that he does not “take any claims against Jian seriously”.

Speaking to Breitbart News, multiple sources within the AfD expressed serious reservations about Guo and his activities, which they claim have both perplexed and concerned many within the Brussels delegation.

“Despite working in the Parliament for a number of years, Mr Guo has rarely been seen and many of us have had little to no interaction with him,” the former AfD EU parliament delegation leader, Nicolaus Fest MEP, told Breitbart. “Nobody knows what he does, nobody has any contact with him, nobody seriously thinks he is here to progress the aims of the AfD.”

Such a statement was echoed by another source within the party, who described Guo as having worked to gather information on fellow aides and MEPs as well as allegedly working to push pro-China causes within the delegation.

“The exact content of his work and how it’s benefiting the parliamentary work of the AfD is very unclear,” the source said. “[T]here is no information on his background or skill set, he has been trying to obtain the private addresses of MEPs and their assistants and is pushing a pro-Chinese line in international trade, for which he is responsible within the office of Maximilian Krah.”

The source went on to claim that “all this adds to the suspicions that he may be tied to the CCP”.

Although unwilling to come to any definitive conclusion on the status of Guo and his relationship — if any — with Chinese authorities, Dr Fest also confirmed that he did hold reservations about the aide.

“Rumour has it that he is paid on the lowest grade available [in the European Parliament],” Fest claimed, saying that such rumours raise “more questions”, including whether or not he could be receiving funding from another source other than his work with the AfD.

Fest also noted that “despite being a young man”, Guo apparently has only a “very limited social media presence”, another thing that struck the elected MEP as unusual.

“Everyone can draw their own conclusions from all of this,” he went on to say. “But as the saying goes, there’s no smoke without fire.”

In a statement given to Breitbart Europe, Maximilian Krah challenged the claims his colleagues have publicly made about Guo’s actions and activities, alleging that his assistant was instead being targeted because of his “ethnic background”.

“I do not take any claims against Jian seriously,” he said.

Krah also rejected the suggestion that Guo lacked proficiency in English or German, describing him as “fluent” in both, adding that the parliamentary assistant gave up his Chinese passport sometime before coming to work in the European Parliament.

“Jian is of Chinese origin and he was in China but moved here at a young age,” the MEP said. “He had a [Chinese] passport before becoming a naturalized German citizen. He does not own any other nationality as far as I know.”

The AfD politician also said that he has “no information about any source of supplemental income” Guo is or is not receiving, adding that he does not think the aide has any.

“Jian is one of my best paid Assistants, the [European Parliament] is his only employer,” Krah claimed.

Breitbart Europe also asked Krah about a LinkedIn account cited by the European Conservative. The account lists a man located on the outskirts of Brussels named “Jian Guo” as having worked in the past for a number of companies with links to the Chinese Communist Party. The MEP replied that he had asked Guo about this, with the assistant denying that the account was his.

“I have asked Jian and this LinkedIn profile is not his,” the parliamentarian replied. “There are apparently over 90 million people with a similar name in the world. He has at no point worked with companies that have active ties with the [Chinese] government.”

Krah went on to suggest that Guo was being “targeted” over his ethnic background before lashing out at the article published by the European Conservative that first detailed the various claims made against the assistant by AfD insiders.

“There is not and there has never been any evidence against him, supporting any of the wild accusations the mentioned article is bringing up,” he said. “Jian is innocent and I assume that there will be a need for a formal apology by the author of the mentioned article, after the smoke clears up.”

In a separate email, Jian Guo himself said that he was “personally shocked by the allegations”, telling Breitbart that “they are not grounded on reality”.

“I never did any lobby jobs for any companies, organizations, or third states. I have not worked to further the aims or foreign policy of the [People’s Republic of China],” he said. “I am sad that people I have worked with are apparently now trying to frame me as a Chinese Spy. I have never gathered names or addresses for any other purpose than my work as assistant of Dr. Krah.”

“I did not and do not have any contact to Confucius Institute in Germany, nor activities with it (sic),” Guo continued. “I have never worked for a company with active links to the Government of [the People’s Republic of China].”

He also asserted that he was no longer a Chinese citizen — claiming to have surrendered it in order to become a German citizen in 2011 — that his work in the European Parliament is his only source of income, and that the LinkedIn account listed in other reports do not belong to him.

Concluding his email to Breitbart, Guo repeated Krah’s claim that the accusations against him are racially motivated.

“I am shocked that the enemies of Dr. Krah are apparently willing to frame me as a Chinese Spy on nothing else but the color of my skin,” he said. “This is very sad.”

Breitbart Europe also approached the main press office of AfD for comment regarding the issue, but they did not make a meaningful reply.

According to information already within the public sphere, Maximilian Krah as a politician has a history of pushing pro-China narratives while serving as a member of the European Parliament.

Having regularly been featured in CCP-linked publication the Global Times, Krah has repeatedly spoken out against attempts to decouple Europe from China.

He has also challenged the idea that EU nations should support Taiwan as an independent nation-state, having previously described the Lithuanian government’s decision to tighten its relationship with the island as lacking “a sense for reality”.

“Taiwan is a non-state under international law with which we trade. We have no further interest,” he wrote regarding the issue on Twitter last year. “Chinese issues should be settled in China by the Chinese.”

He has also publicly expressed doubt about alleged human rights abuses in Xinjiang, where the Chinese government is said to be engaging in a genocide against the local Uyghur population.

“I’ve always thought the scary stories about Xinjiang questionable, anti-[China] propaganda with no valid facts,” he wrote back in 2021 while retweeting a story by the Associated Press describing the Communist government as having eased the totalitarian measures put in place in the region.

Follow Peter Caddle on Twitter: @Peter_Caddle
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