Chinese-run Brussels networking club raises intelligence concerns

The Global CEOs Dinner Club brings business leaders and political figures together at high-level events in Brussels and is now seeking to expand into France.

A Chinese-run networking club targeting business and political elites in Brussels bears the hallmarks of an influence and intelligence-gathering operation, a Western intelligence source has told Euronews.

The Global CEOs Dinner Club, which is now expanding to France, operates in a manner associated with China’s United Front, a Communist Party network used to promote Beijing’s interests abroad, according to the source.

The assessment comes as Belgium has recently been at the centre of several espionage probes launched by its Federal Prosecutor’s Office, including investigations into a former Chinese-Belgian researcher in the semiconductor industry and a Canadian national of Chinese origin working at NATO in Mons.

Yifei Yang, who runs the Global CEOs Dinner Club, studied in China and at a private European institute in Nice, France, before launching the organisation in Brussels last March.

French media outlet La Lettre reported last week that her activities had put at least one Western intelligence service on alert.

Asked by Euronews, one intelligence source would not confirm whether their service was investigating the case. However, after Yang’s activities were described to them, the source said they matched the modus operandi of China’s United Front.

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