{"id":12636,"date":"2020-01-05T17:02:55","date_gmt":"2020-01-05T08:02:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2020\/jan\/05\/china-buying-influence-czech-republic-loan-company"},"modified":"2020-01-05T17:02:55","modified_gmt":"2020-01-05T08:02:55","slug":"china-accused-of-buying-influence-after-czech-billionaire-funds-pr-push","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/?p=12636","title":{"rendered":"China accused of buying influence after Czech billionaire funds PR push"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Prague security services say the regime poses major threat as loan firm launches propaganda campaign to burnish Beijing\u2019s image<\/p>\n<p>The Czech Republic\u2019s richest man is at the centre of a suspected foreign influence campaign by the Chinese government after one of his businesses financed an attempt to boost China\u2019s image in the central European country.<\/p>\n<p>In a development that has taken even seasoned sinologists aback, Home Credit \u2013 a domestic loans company owned by Petr Kellner that has lent an estimated \u00a310bn to Chinese consumers \u2013 paid a PR firm to place articles in the local media giving a more positive picture of a country widely associated with political repression and human rights abuses.<\/p>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2020\/jan\/05\/china-buying-influence-czech-republic-loan-company\">Continue reading&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Prague security services say the regime poses major threat as loan firm launches propaganda campaign to burnish Beijing\u2019s imageThe Czech Republic\u2019s richest man is at the centre of a suspected foreign influence campaign by the Chinese government after o&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":825,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sns_share_botton_hide":"","vkExUnit_sns_title":"","_vk_print_noindex":"","sitemap_hide":"","_veu_custom_css":"","veu_display_promotion_alert":"","vkexunit_cta_each_option":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[412,50,1036,42,49],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12636","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-belt-and-road-initiative","category-china","category-czech-republic","category-world-news","category-xi-jinping"],"veu_head_title_object":{"title":"","add_site_title":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12636","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/825"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12636"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12636\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12646,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12636\/revisions\/12646"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12636"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12636"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12636"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}