The Dutch Chinese catering community is in party politics: donations linked to the war have been asked by the National Congress, and the Chinese Communist Party ' s AID database has targeted the Netherlands for political participation.

The long-standing network of business associations, home-town organizations and diasporas in the Dutch Chinese catering industry is becoming an important clue to local party financial monitoring and foreign political impact investigations. On 11 November 2026, the Netherlands investigated the media, FTM, for disclosing the internal documents commissioned by CCPS to China and the University of South China to build a data platform on foreigners, one of which specifically addressed the issue of Dutch Chinese participation in politics. This latest discovery has given new attention to previous disputes over the association of the Dutch Chinese Catering Association for electoral participation, the sponsorship of political parties by expatriates and the CCP in the context of the general war.

The Netherlands has seen many public records of this in the past three years: trade associations organize Chinese catering operators to support political party candidates, heads of diaspora groups participate in campaign mobilization, and the Chinese community provides tens of thousands of euros to the newly established NL Plan party. In 2024, a joint FTM-RTL Nieuws survey linked some of the funding sources to CCP-KNW, prompting Dutch parliamentarians to ask the Government to explain the regulatory situation. In 2025, NL Plan tried to request the withdrawal of the FTM through the proceedings, but the court rejected it.

The central issue revealed by these events is the network of immigrant community organizations that have extensive commercial and social ties, how to access Dutch party politics and whether foreign party institutions can gain non-transparent political influence through their relationships.

From mutual aid to political mobilization: the catering industry forms a network of cross-city organizations

The development of the Dutch Chinese catering industry has its own history of immigration. In Chinese restaurants, French fries, fast-food restaurants and related food service enterprises, a number of generations of Chinese migrants have provided entrepreneurial opportunities. With the expansion of the business, trade associations, supplier cooperation networks and local Chinese associations have evolved to assume the functions of business coordination, rights and interests, information exchange and community liaison.

These networks were later involved in Dutch politics. On 2 March 2023, the Dutch Chinese Potato Association publicly organized a provincial council election campaign. According to the Association ' s own published activity, then President Cai Yong led a cadre to Anam, accompanied Liu Cheng, a Chinese candidate for the Partido Democrata (VVD), to visit the nearby 10 Chinese-run French fries, ice cream shops and fast food restaurants, and posted campaign posters and encouraged members to vote. Cai Yong, who was also Deputy Minister for Political Participation and Promotion of the All-Honghua Federation of Associations at the time, also indicated that a similar campaign was planned to be conducted in contact with another Chinese candidate in North Brabunte Province.

The public record of the Association also shows that this political mobilization is intertwined with the business of the industry. Just before the above-mentioned campaign, the heads of the Association Cai Yong and others visited the catering chain 't Bakhuus Group to discuss industry cooperation and talent development with the Chairman of the Board, including single-ning, and to discuss arrangements to facilitate the participation of employees of enterprises in the voting process.

The organizational strength of the Chinese catering industry has thus gained political utility: the association can use long-established business relationships to use the cross-city membership network for candidate advocacy, voter liaison and public service mobilization. These activities are in themselves political participation that can be undertaken in accordance with the law, but also create a link of open scrutiny between the professional organizations, candidates for political parties and the leadership of the diaspora.

This mobilization further entered the NL Plan electoral campaign from September to November

1. The Dutch karate media recorded that NL Plan had held election conferences at catering sites, with the participation of the All-Honghua Federation of Associations, the Netherlands China Peace and Unity Promotion Association and other Chinese organizations. The meeting discussed candidates for signature, Twitter coordination and campaign fund-raising. On 6 November, the All-Honghua Federation of Associations organized a further general election at the Shanghai Gardens Hotel in Delft, with the participation of the NL Plan candidate, Lii Tung, Cai Yong and the heads of several diaspora groups.

These activities demonstrate a functional political organization: catering enterprises provide a venue for their activities, trade associations and diasporas are the focal points, and political parties receive campaigning and community support. The survey subsequently found that funds were also flowing along these social relationships to political parties.

4.16 million Euros in dispute over contributions, bringing together the war-related organizations

On 4 June 2024, FTM and RTL Nieuws jointly published an investigation, which indicated that NL Plan received substantial support from the Chinese community during the Dutch House of Representatives elections in

1. According to the financial contributions published by the local karate media, the total amount is Euro41,620 from the sources of the food and catering enterprises, karate, community organizations and individuals.

Among them, the Netherlands and China ' s promotion of peaceful reunification would appear on the public list of contributions. FTM cited the researcher ' s analysis that the organization had organizational links with the China Association for the Promotion of Peace and Unity and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) component of the war. The All-Hong Kong Federation of Associations is also listed as a donor. FTM also recorded that some NL Plan candidates were in close contact with these diasporas and had participated in activities related to the CCP-UCPN.

These findings give special public interest to the issue of the political financing of NL Plan. (a) A Dutch political party is a regular political activity supported by its citizens and legal organizations; But when the financiers are involved in organizations linked to the political work of the foreign ruling party, the source of funding, organizational decision-making and practical impact need to be more closely examined.

NL Plan and the director, Chen Guoqiang, denied control by the Communist Party and contested the FTM ' s findings. The total amount of funds is also disputed by both sides. NL Plan subsequently indicated in the litigation that the actual contributions received were approximately EUR 29,000, while the EUR 41,620 reported by FTM came from public records of the valar media. The difference between the two amounts was not finally approved in the judicial proceedings.

The dispute concerned not simply the amount of contributions, but the ability of political funds to enter political parties through a number of associations, enterprises and individuals with organizational links, without fully presenting the common relationship behind them.

The Dutch Government's official response: it is impossible to determine the full scale of the funds associated with the war

The day after the publication of the FTM investigation, VVD and five D66 MPs submitted written questions to the Government about the links between NL Plan and the CCP-related organizations and whether political party financial supervision could identify foreign political interference.

On 29 August 2024, then Minister of the Interior Judith Uitermark gave an official response. The Government confirmed that NL Plan had declared in 2023 that it had not received contributions up to the then 4,500 euro disclosure threshold and had declared that it was in compliance with the applicable provisions. However, the Government also noted that the CCP UCPN is not a single legal entity and that the borders of the individuals and organizations concerned are difficult to fully determine, and therefore cannot make a final judgement on the total amount of contributions from political parties that may come from the network or exclude contributions that fall below the statutory declaration threshold.

The importance of this response lies in the clear recognition by the Government of the limitations of regulatory capacity. The ban on political contributions to non-Netherlands donors in the Netherlands came into force in 2023, but the question of whether funds are regular Dutch-owned or have links to foreign political organizations requiring investigation cannot be judged in their entirety solely on the basis of the donor ' s registration status.

The Netherlands has reduced the threshold for political disclosure from 4,500 to 1,000 euros since January

1. Lowering the threshold would increase financial transparency, but monitoring of donor networks with cross-cutting leadership, common political objectives or complex organizational linkages would still depend on investigations of actual relationships and sources of funding.

In 2025, NL Plan and its head sued FTM for the deletion and correction of the 2024 investigation report. The Amsterdam court rejected the request on 12 September, considering that the report had important public interest and that the media had the right to investigate on the basis of public information. At the same time, the Court did not finally determine all the disputed facts in the summary proceedings, but confirmed that NL Plan had failed to prove that the relevant FTM reports should be found to be illegal.

The proceedings left a clear judicial record: the investigation of the party ' s funds and foreign political influence is a public matter that the Dutch press can monitor in accordance with the law.

CCPAI database exposed: Dutch Chinese political participation is included in study 353

On 11 November 2026, FTM and UK Sky News revealed internal documents from the University of Sud University, which advanced the investigation to another level.

According to the data, the Central Command of the Communist Party of China (CPC) has commissioned the University of South China to build a “Major Data Platform for Foreigners”, which will use artificial intelligence, some 50 web-based reptiles and cross-platform data analysis techniques to gather information on political figures abroad, entrepreneurs, academics, heads of diasporas and the Red People of the Internet. The system is able to analyse the socio-economic background, educational experience, attitude towards China and the effects of past exposure, and to inform subsequent contacts and relationships.

Of the 393 studies listed in the leak, No. 353 is entitled " Challenges and Policy Recommendations for Chinese Participation in Dutch Politics in the New Context ". FTM also found that some of the research results were assigned to the upper levels of the Communist Party and that a significant number of reports received feedback from local party officials.

This means that the political participation of Dutch Chinese has become a formal subject in the CCP system of research. By comparing traditional diaspora contacts, the data platform can integrate decentralized public information, personal relations and political preferences into a unified analysis, providing more systematic technical means of researching social networks abroad.

The current public disclosure documents do not contain the full report No. 353, nor does they prove that the study directly guided the NL Plan campaign or the Dutch catering community ' s campaign. Therefore, the political party activities that have taken place in the Netherlands and the data studies in China need to be examined on the basis of their respective evidence.

These two sets of materials, however, reveal the fact that the Dutch Chinese community has developed a social network that can be used for political mobilization, while the CCP has been studying political participation and the relationship between Chinese and Chinese abroad.

The key to monitoring this relationship is to identify the existence of specific financial instructions, organizational coordination or political information flows, rather than to judge on the basis of ethnic background and normal social interaction.

Industry organizations continue to expand and Dutch political funds are being tested

On 9 November 2026, the Dutch Chinese Potato Association inaugurated its fifth board in Hilversham, and Chairman of the catering chain 't Bakhus took over as Chairman of the Gold Tung. According to live reports from The Netherlands United Times, the association has over 600 member enterprises. According to Chen Long, President of the All-Honghua Federation of Associations, there are about 3,000 Chinese-run French fries and fast food restaurants in the Netherlands.

The event was attended by members of the Foreign Service of the Chinese Embassy in the Netherlands, Dutch diplomats, the Chinese community leaders and local members of society. Public records show that Chinese catering associations are already important social organizations that link enterprises, suppliers, diasporas and public institutions, but attendance at events, business cooperation and legal participation in politics are not equivalent to accepting foreign government directives.

The Dutch General Intelligence and Security Service (AIVD) has warned that some Chinese may be under pressure as Chinese authorities try to use the overseas Chinese community to exert covert political influence. For Dutch society, the protection of Chinese normal political participation and the identification of foreign political interference must go hand in hand.

The core oversight responsibilities revealed by this series of investigations fall first and foremost on the Netherlands party financial oversight and State security agencies. The Ministry of the Interior needs to ensure that political contributions can be traced back to their actual sources; Political parties need to disclose important financial and organizational relations related to their activities; National security agencies should investigate, on the basis of specific leads, whether foreign agencies use community networks to gather political information or interfere in public decision-making.

The economic and social ties created by the Dutch Chinese catering industry are a legitimate resource for the long-term development of the local immigrant community. What is really needed is to prevent these links from being transformed into channels of political influence by foreign party institutions in the absence of transparency.

With the exposure of the U.N.-U.A.-H.A.'s Aliens Database, the Netherlands cannot understand this issue from individual candidates or individual donations alone. The intersection of business organizations, diaspora relations, party funds and cross-border data analysis is forming a public oversight issue that must be kept under constant review in the Dutch democracy.

• I'm sorry.

Key references

• I'm sorry. FTM, RTL Nieuws: NL Plan and CCP-CCP War Link Survey (4 June 2024)
• I'm sorry. Parliamentary response of the Minister of the Interior of the Netherlands on the political contribution of NL Plan (29 August 2024)
• I'm sorry. Judgement of the Amsterdam Court ECLI:NL:RBAMs:2025:6822 (12 September 2025)
• I'm sorry. FTM: Survey of the UAM-AI database (11 November 2026)
• I'm sorry. Dutch General Association of Chinese Potato: election campaign for the 2023 Provincial Council
• I'm sorry. The Netherlands United Times: The CMOTA's November 2026 report, a new edition