How Russia and China Are Sowing Division and Gaining Influence in the Czech Republic

How Russia and China Are Sowing Division and Gaining Influence in the Czech Republic
Czech President Milos Zeman, right, and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping on the terrace of the Strahov Monastery in Prague, Czech Republic, March 30, 2016 (Photo by Rene Fluger for CTK via AP Images).

PRAGUE—With its foggily lit Gothic alleyways, Prague has long had the image of a hotbed of international espionage. A recent report by the Czech Republic’s national intelligence agency, the Security Information Service, or BIS, does little to dispel that narrative.

It cautions that Russia and China are steadily increasing their efforts to sow division and win influence in this small country in the heart of Eastern Europe, which is a member of the European Union and NATO. Both Moscow and Beijing are widely suspected of seeking to provoke instability across the West, but in few countries are these tussles playing out more openly than in the Czech Republic.

“By utilizing a wide range of methods and activities, state, non-state, foreign and domestic actors tried to weaken Czech state institutions, influence official state positions related to international security and paint natural attributes of a democratic system as its weaknesses,” the report warned, pointing a figure primarily at Russia and China.

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