China’s Communist Party (CCP), with over 100 million members, is the second-largest political organization in the world (surpassed only by the Indian Bharatiya Janata Party), governing the globe’s second-largest economy. This is a stark contrast to Europe’s communist parties, which in countries such as Germany, Hungary, Slovakia, and Luxembourg cannot even gather one percent of votes in national elections. European “comrades” have largely lost their vitality and relevance in European political life – with (by our count) more than half of the EU’s communist parties not holding a single seat in their national assemblies. Others are surviving only through coalitions with broader left-wing movements as is the case in Spain, Portugal, France, and Bulgaria. Yet despite their marginal status, these political relics continue to receive invitations and red-carpet treatment from Beijing.
Why does China invest diplomatic capital and efforts in these seemingly insignificant parties? In the European Parliament (EP), European communists and other members of The Left have repeatedly taken stands against the EU’s more assertive policies toward China and adopted a pro-Beijing tone. It could then be that this “old-comrade diplomacy” serves an effort to incorporate China’s vision of the global order into European left-wing parties’ discourse and positions, thus attempting to legitimize it through ideologically sympathetic channels.
Party-to-Party Diplomacy on the Rise
Analysis of online publications of the International Department of the Communist Party of China (ID-CPC) and of individual European communist parties’ websites and social media posts reveals that delegations from roughly half of the active communist parties in EU countries have visited Beijing since 2020. This exchange is not one-way: alongside European delegations travelling to China, Chinese officials and diplomats have also actively engaged with communist parties on European soil. For instance, in 2020, the Greek Communist Party met with Chinese officials during their visit to Greece, Germany’s communist party held video conferences with Beijing’s branch of ID-CPC. In 2025, the Chinese ambassador to Luxembourg attended several communist party demonstrations and festive gatherings, such as the commemoration in honor of citizens of the Soviet Union deported to Luxembourg during World War II, on May 9.
ID-CPC, the structure behind this outreach effort, operates as China’s parallel diplomatic track, maintaining contact with over 400 parties across 160 countries. It became visibly more active in Europe after 2022, when Liu Jianchao – an Oxford-educated diplomat – took the helm and began transforming China’s party-to-party diplomacy. Unlike his predecessor, Song Tao, who rarely ventured beyond Asia, Liu embarked on an ambitious global tour, visiting 18 countries in his first year – 11 of them outside Asia – including the United Kingdom, Italy, France, and Germany. Since his arrest and disappearance from public life in August 2025, he was replaced by Liu Haixing, a veteran diplomat who previously served at the Chinese mission to the United Nations as minister-counsellor and as envoy at the embassy in Paris.
The CCP’s approach to foreign policy clearly transcends ideological boundaries. However, when it comes to communist parties, the ID-CPC’s statements and communication emphasize shared ideological foundations and roots in Marxism-Leninism and use a deliberately fraternal language. This “common ideology” shared with “comrade and friend” parties is highlighted as the foundation for all efforts to “strengthen exchanges and cooperation” as well as to “enhance understanding of China” and “jointly contribute to world peace and stability.”
Such language creates a sense of ideological solidarity able to transcend tensions of traditional diplomacy and in turn creates a convenient alternative channel for Beijing in case official diplomatic ties are put under strain. Such is the case in the Czech Republic, whose diplomatic relations with China have reached a freezing point over the last few years, but whose Communist Party (which scored 4.3 percent in the country’s last general elections in 2025) is ever so warm to Beijing. In February 2025, Liu Jianchao welcomed the Czech Communist Party’s Chairwoman Kateřina Konečná, declaring: “the CCP regards the Communist Party of Bohemia and Moravia as a comrade and friend, appreciates its long-term support for the development of Czech-China and Europe-China relations.”
During their visits to China, delegations invited by the ID-CPC are given the opportunity to witness China’s economic development firsthand and participate in symposiums on “Chinese-style modernization.” Such was the case for Italian Communist Party member Francesco Maringiò, who described his 2023 visit as “a unique privilege” which strengthened “internationalist ties.”
Echoing Beijing’s Narratives: in Parliament and Beyond
While individually weak, these parties gain collective influence through their representation in the EP. Communist parties with EP seats belong to The Left group, which frequently abstains or votes against European measures it perceives as China-critical, including resolutions to deepen cooperation with Taiwan, or relating to the EU’s wider policy strategy of “de-risking” its economic relations with China.
Furthermore, through the interventions of some communist Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) in parliamentary debates, Beijing’s narratives, key concepts, and terminology make their way into European public space. A striking example is Portuguese communist MEP João Oliveira whose party visited China in 2023. In an address to the EP in July 2025, he called for the “strengthening of relations with China.” Oliveira’s speech – featured in a news report of Chinese state-owned news agency Xinhua – emphasized the “principle of non-interference” and “respect for the One China principle, without hesitation or distortion” and pointed the finger at “the policy of escalation and confrontation of the US” – all recurring notions and terminologies of China’s foreign policy.
Through these parties, Beijing also attempts to iron out contentious points with Europe, such as concerns over human rights violations. The Cyprus’ Communist Party (AKEL), a major opposition party back home, maintains robust ties with Beijing, and frequently interacts with Chinese officials. (In 2025, the AKEL General Secretary met both with the Minister of the ID-CPC and with the Vice-President of the National People’s Congress of China.) AKEL has namely defended Chinese positions on sore points of EU-China relations, praising for instance “China’s development in Xinjiang province,” and explicitly supporting Beijing’s One China principle.
Online and in the traditional media, these parties can potentially be instrumental in pursuing Beijing’s objective of “telling China’s story well” whether they serve as content creators or narrative amplifiers. Hungary’s Communist Workers’ Party (Magyar Munkáspárt) – whose leader Gyula Thürmer appeared in Chinese state media praising the CCP as “a testament to the power of socialist ideas” back in 2021 – publishes daily pro-Beijing micro-articles on its official website. Further, in February 2025, the French Communist Party and its newspaper L’Humanité, represented by its director during a visit in Beijing, committed to “enhancing understanding of China” and “reporting the real China to European people.” While the newspaper’s recent publications do not suggest an alignment with Chinese narratives, such an exchange shows that media connected to European communist parties can provide an opportunity for Beijing to sway the way it is portrayed in the broader European media landscape.
From Chinese state-media’s perspective, foreign communist party leaders also make perfect interviewees to cater to their own audiences. In a 2022 interview for China Dialogue, Nikos Ioannou, a member of the Secretariat and Political Bureau of the Central Committee of AKEL, expressed gratitude for Chinese investments in Cyprus. One year before him, French communist leader Fabien Roussel was interviewed by the Chinese news agency Xinhua and likewise praised China’s development under communist leadership and lauded Chinese help to developing countries.
Anti-Capitalists of Europe, Align!
The main result of this “comrade diplomacy” so far seems to be aligning China’s geopolitical interests with European communists’ declared “anti-imperialist” world views, with the potential to permeate to the larger leftist political spectrum. These parties’ inherent opposition to NATO, neoliberal capitalism and what they perceive as “American imperialism,” provides fertile ground for Chinese narratives about an alternative world order.
In alignment with one of Beijing’s key foreign policy objectives, European communists often present China as a peacemaker in contrast to a “belligerent US.” In a statement opposing European rearmament, Spain’s Communist Party exemplifies this: “while the US opts for military escalation, other powers like China have firmly appealed to peace, diplomacy and dialogue as indispensable ways to avoid disaster.” In a similar vein, Belgium’s Workers’ Party (PTB) leader Peter Mertens wrote an opinion piece for Le Monde Diplomatique, in which he portrays a hostile and jealous Washington preparing for “the next conflict (…) against China.” Such a rhetoric aligns well with Beijing’s narratives, presenting itself as an advocate for global peace and actor reacting merely defensively to the “aggressive” US.
Even so, there are occasional outliers – communist parties in Europe that take a markedly different line on China and refuse to echo Beijing’s messaging. One notable exception is the Swedish Communist Party. Back in 2021, the party published an article reacting and refusing the invitation to sign a statement authored by the CCP. In this statement, it designates China as “one of the strongest capitalist and imperialist powers,” and declares that it “refused to be a tool of Chinese foreign policy.” In the same vein, in 2024, the Party of Labour of Austria adopted a resolution stating that “capitalist production relations prevail in the PRC”, that “Socialism with Chinese characteristics” is not socialism” and finally that the CCP is “no longer a communist party in substance.”
An Unsuspected Gateway for Political Influence
China’s active relationship with Europe’s marginal communist parties is one of the many prongs of a sophisticated influence operation that transcends traditional diplomatic channels. By leveraging shared ideological foundations, Beijing creates a gateway for diffusing its worldview into certain European left-wing political spheres.
As China continues asserting its global influence, these “old comrades” provide valuable allies in the battle for hearts and minds across European political landscapes. Their marginality, rather than being a weakness, paradoxically grants them more leeway in such relationships due to reduced scrutiny and accountability pressures. In China’s patient, long-term approach to building its global influence, every comrade counts – no matter how small their domestic political footprint is.
Written by
Emma Belmonte
Emma Belmonte is China Projects Analyst at AMO, specializing in Beijing’s influence on European political discourse, Chinese security and law enforcement activities in Europe, and Taiwan-Europe cooperation. Emma has been working as a reporter specialized on Chinese speaking regions, has conducted on the ground reporting in both Taiwan and China and written multiple feature articles for publications including GEO magazine, Figaro Magazine, Asialyst, the Green European Journal. She holds a Master’s degree in Modern Chinese Studies from the University of Oxford and a Bachelor’s degree in Philosophy from the Ecole Normale Supérieure de Lyon.
