Officials in the U.S ., Australia , New Zealand and Germany — major recipients of Chinese foreign direct investment — have been questioning the extent of Beijing's interference on their home turfs amid recent developments that suggest rising Chinese clout.

Last Wednesday, the U.S. Congressional-Executive Commission on China (CECC) held a hearing on Beijing's influence-wielding attempts states-side. That same week, China summoned Australia's ambassador after Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull cited "disturbing reports about Chinese influence."

Meanwhile, security experts in New Zealand warned Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern about Chinese attempts to access sensitive public and private sector information, according to a Financial Times report last week. And in Germany, intelligence officials recently revealed how Chinese spies used LinkedIn to snoop on politicians, according to Reuters.

Experts widely believe that Beijing is using education, spying, political donations and people-to-people diplomacy to gain a greater say in local decision-making in these countries. And at a time when Beijing is dominating the global trade conversation, the issue threatens to strain bilateral relations between China and Western economies.

China has vehemently rejected all claims of political interference, referring to them as "symptoms of McCarthyism" in a recent Global Times editorial.

That said, Chinese money can be found across the world in the form of loans, acquisitions, currency swaps, foreign direct investment and infrastructure projects as Chinese President Xi Jinping's government emerges as the world's largest provider of capital.

Xi's team also has spent billions "to shape norms and attitudes in other countries, relying on the cultivation of relationships with individuals, educational and cultural institutions, and centers of policy influence," Shanthi Kalathil, director at the International Forum for Democratic Studies, the National Endowment for Democracy, said at the CECC hearing. This complex network of liaisons falls under the domain of the United Front Work Department, a Communist Party agency driving the nation's push for global soft power.