Jan Zahradil is a vice-chair of the committee on international trade and president of the European Conservatives and Reformists Party. He is the former first vice-chairman of the Civic Democratic Party. He had been an MP for 6 years before he was elected as an MEP in 2004. He had also been a foreign policy and political affairs advisor to the prime minister, the head of the department for European integration at the Government Office and a Czech delegate at the Convent on the Future of the EU.
Zahradil is the chairman of the Group of Friendship between the EU and China. The group serves as a Chinese tool for asserting influence in the European Parliament. The founding of the group was initiated by Zahradil’s parliamentary assistant Gai-Lin, the first official Chinese employee in the EP. Gai-Lin also works as a manager of The Chinese People’s Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries, which is an organisation subordinated to the Chinese Communist Party. According to Zahradil, Gai-Lin’s engagement for the Chinese regime is not a problem because he went through security screening and Zahradil has permission to have him in his team.
Zahradil also praises Chinese activities in Central and Eastern Europe. He was accused of having conflicting interests because he was involved in negotiating a trade deal between the EU and Vietnam parallel to being the chairman of the Advisory Board of the Confederation of Vietnamese Associations in Europe which is, according to experts, narrowly connected to Vietnamese Communist Party. After pressure from other MEPs and media, Zahradil resigned from his post as the chairman of the Advisory Board. He gave several interviews to the Czech disinformation portal Parlamentní listy, which publishes manipulative and misleading articles daily, spreads Russian propaganda and their name makes it look like they are a serious medium. Zahradil also called “green socialism” a bigger threat than prosecuted Prime Minister Andrej Babiš and openly pro-Russian and pro-Chinese President Milos Zeman.
The MEP is often spreading pro-Chinese narratives and criticized the critics of Beijing. His praise of China's provision of medical supplies to the world was mentioned by Chinese state television. Zahradil expressed that he hoped these efforts by China will help to move the debate on the country to a more rational level and turn down anti-Chinese hysteria. He also thanked Beijing for its help in an interview with the Chinese Guangming Daily newspaper.
On a similar note, Zahradil also stated that the Czech foreign policy should not function as a “beacon of morality” and in its relations to China it should adopt a more realist approach. The MEP has been an active member, even chairman, of the EU-China friendship group, due to which it was suspected that he could have been in a conflict of interests in his position as the deputy chair of the EP’s International Trade Committee. Zahradil has, however, denied these suspicions as unfounded. Nevertheless, he has been recently investigated for the supposed concealment of financial donations from China. Zahradil defended himself, stating that it was just money for catering.
Unsurprisingly, Zahradil has been a big supporter of the EU-China trade deal, which he presented as a protective measure for the EU investments in China.
Zahradil has also jokingly referred to himself as a “Vietnamese agent” when writing articles praising the country as a soon-to-be modern state and slowly growing into the role of a stable regional leader. He also sees Vietnam as a new ally of the USA in the region and a potential valuable partner in the future.
Regarding the green agenda, he also said that “it is the biggest future political challenge, part of this agenda is diverting attention to less important problems like fighting fake news, Chinese spies, and Czech Prime Minister Babiš.” Zahradil does not believe in a potential common European army and says that NATO is the best security provider. Despite his rhetorical ambiguity regarding geopolitical issues, he has often voted for Kremlin-critical resolutions in the Europen Parliament.
(Updated: 13/7/2021)
Zahradil gave a comment to the Chinese Xinhua news agency on the EU-China summit. In his Facebook status, which contained a link to his commentary to Xinhua, he criticised the current discourse about China in the Czech Republic. He also continued with his criticism of people, NGOs and generally the liberal media (he mentioned the third group in an interview with the disinformation portal Parlamentní listy) which talked about a Chinese threat.
Zahradil said that although he does not like Josep Borell, he has the right stance on China – that the EU should not follow in Washington’s footsteps regarding China.
Zahradil shared an article affirming that the coronavirus was not man-made, which he commented by saying that “another conspiracy theory (that the Chinese created the coronavirus in a laboratory) is dead”. His post, however, did not address the most common Chinese disinformation narrative, claiming that “it was the USA, who made the coronavirus.” Instead, he criticized Czech “fake news fighters” who, according to him, shared the conspiracy theory that China was responsible for the creation of the virus.
