A number of major bomb threats against Chinese embassies were made in a journalist’s name after she published an article detailing the intimidation faced by critics of the Chinese Communist Party.
Marije Vlaskamp, a long-time China correspondent for Dutch newspaper De Volkskrant, reportedly had numerous bomb threats made in her name after interviewing one Chinese Communist Party critic over the numerous threats made against his life.
China-born critics of the Communist regime often face massive intimidation campaigns both at home and abroad, with numerous CCP-owned “police stations” operating abroad being recently shut down in Europe in an attempt to curb such activities.
According to a report in Vlaskamp’s newspaper, she herself was subject to such a campaign after an interview with Wang Jingyu, a young Chinese man who had been routinely intimidated by pro-CCP individuals since fleeing China in 2021.
The article attracted unwanted attention however, with an individual identifying themselves as “Alice” threatening both Wang and Vlaskamp with being arrested by the police if they did not meet her list of demands, one of which was for the interview to be taken down.
“One tip from me and the police will come and arrest you and your journalist friend,” the mysterious individual messaged Wang.
After the pair refused to engage with the demands, a number of bomb threats were reportedly made in both the names of both the emigrant and the journalist, including against the Chinese embassies in Oslo and the Hague.
This in turn is said to have prompted police investigations into both individuals, though authorities were reportedly quick to believe that none of the threats was actually made by either of them.
“According to the Justice Department it is ‘very likely that neither W. nor V. have anything to do with the bomb scares and the false reservations’. Who is behind them remains unclear,” a statement on the matter from the Dutch Public Prosecution Department read.
It went on to say that a number of the threats had been traced to IP addresses in mainland China and Hong Kong, though it admitted that such identifiers could easily be faked.
The actual culprits behind the threats reportedly remain unknown.
Though there is very little to prove the Chinese state was involved in the intimidation campaign, Vlaskamp nevertheless claims that the actions taken against her and her interview subject were highly coordinated, and bore the hallmarks of classic CCP skullduggery.
Law enforcement authorities in the Communist nation have a reputation for such cloak-and-dagger activities, with spies from the country frequently engaging in campaigns of intimidation against dissidents abroad regardless of the views of the country they are operating in.
The state has even set up a number of so-called “police stations” in other countries — including those located in Europe and the Americas — allegedly for this exact purpose.
This has finally attracted the attention of authorities in the West in recent months, with a number of outposts in Europe in particular being shut down in response to alleged intimidation campaigns.
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