Meet the United Front Work Department

The U.S. should perhaps scrapping any trade deal with China. Why?

Just this week, the United States Navy and Taiwanese authorities sailed through the Taiwan Strait. China threatened use of force to thwart any U.S. move over the partnership with Taiwan. So, the U.S. just tested that.

As an aside, the United States just approved a major sale of weapons requested by Taiwan totaling $2.2 billion. This is actually in compliance with U.S. law where we are to provide Taiwan with sufficient equipment and services for self-defense.

As part of the U.S. 7th Fleet, a guided missile cruiser transited the route continuing efforts to keep free and open the Indo-Pacific. President Trump is defying China and should actually as we dont respond to threats of war all while the White House National Security advisor John Bolton is in S. Korea. China continues to push the One China principle so as not to harm relations. Meanwhile, China has a robust active measures operation going on in Washington DC. So read on.

China’s Communist Party is intensifying covert influence operations in the United States that include funding Washington think tanks and coercing Chinese Americans, according to a congressional commission report.

The influence operations are conducted by the United Front Work Department, a Central Committee organ that employs tens of thousands of operatives who seek to use both overt and covert operations to promote Communist Party policies.

Johns Hopkins School of Advance International Studies, a major foreign policy education and analysis institute, has received funding from Tung Chee-hwa, a vice chairman of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, the party group that directs the United Front Work Department and includes a member of the Politburo Standing Committee, the collective dictatorship that rules China.

The funding for Johns Hopkins came from Tung’s non-profit group in Hong Kong, the China-U.S. Exchange Foundation, which is a registered Chinese agent.

In addition to Johns Hopkins, other think tanks linked to China and influential in American policy circles include the Brookings Institution, Atlantic Council, Center for American Progress, EastWest Institute, Carter Center, and the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

The Exchange Foundation is tied to Chinese government influence operations and uses the same public relations firm as the Chinese embassy. More here.

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President Xi views United Front work as an important tool to strengthen support for the CCP both inside and outside China by exploiting individuals’ emotional and ideological sympathies for China and providing financial support to key groups and individuals.24 Although the importance of United Front work declined after the founding of the People’s Republic of China,* a number of Western analysts agree it has regained its prominence since then, and especially since the rise of Xi Jinping, as Beijing has embraced a much more assertive approach to foreign policy.25In his address to the 19th National Congress of the CCP† in October 2017, President Xi called United Front work“an important way to ensure the success of the [Chinese Communist] Party’s cause” and urged the CCP to form the “broadest possible patriotic United Front.”26 President Xi has also called United Front work a “magic weapon” that is important for bringing about “the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation.”

Several pieces of U.S. legislation in 2018 have included important provisions for countering CCP and other malign foreign influence.‡ Representative Joe Wilson (R-SC) and Senators Rubio and Tom Cotton (R-AK) introduced legislation in March 2018, titled the Foreign Influence Transparency Act, which would require organizations that promote the political agendas of foreign governments to register as foreign agents§ and would require universities to disclose certain donations and gifts from foreign sources.127 Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) introduced the Stop Higher U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission 15Education Espionage and Theft Act in May 2018, which is intended to strengthen the U.S. government’s ability to counter foreign intelligence organizations working inside the U.S. educational system.128 Senator Rubio and his Congressional-Executive Commission on China co-chair Representative Chris Smith (R-NJ), along with co-sponsors, introduced companion bills in the Senate and House in June 2018 calling for the establishment of an interagency task force to compile an unclassified report on CCP influence operations targeting the United States and certain U.S. allies.129 Most significantly, the National Defense Authorization Act for 2019 contains important provisions to coordinate the U.S. government response to malign foreign influence operations and campaigns—including specifically by China.* Read in full here.