Suddenly, Chinese Spies Seem to Be Popping Up All over Europe

> More important than traditional espionage, he said, is China’s use of a “latent network” of people who do not work directly for the Ministry of State Security but who, for commercial and other reasons, are vulnerable to pressure from the Chinese Communist Party and its myriad offshoots.

I assume this means something like: "Do us a little favor or else bad things will happen to your families or properties in China."

Once enough favors happen, they become self-leveraging: "Do Y for us, it'd be a shame if they found out about how you did X."