The United States has little insight into how deep China’s network of espionage and influence operations runs across the country, according to a dire warning from Congress.
The presence of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) on American soil has already revealed itself in the network of secret police stations in major cities and the ‘Little Red Classrooms’ in kindergartens.
Now, members of the bipartisan House China Select Committee have released a memo detailing how the US has failed to combat Beijing’s infiltration — and how it could get worse.
The threat comes from the united front, a political strategy that Xi Jinping has called his “magic weapon.”
It is the plan that the CCP uses to exert influence outside its circle without the information appearing to come directly from the Chinese government.
China spends billions every year on the united front system. According to a 2020 Newsweek report, United Front is affiliated with some 600 groups in the US, all of which have regular contact with the CCP.
The photo shows Chinese President Xi Jinping. Concerns are mounting about his country’s funding of America’s public schools
“The work of a united front harms U.S. interests through legal and illegal technology transfers, surveillance of Chinese diaspora communities, promotion of favorable narratives about the People’s Republic of China by ostensibly independent voices, and the neutralization or intimidation of critics of the CCP,” the spokesperson said. new report found it.
“The United States has no direct analogy, and the U.S. government has struggled to counter the united front work with traditional counterintelligence, law enforcement, and diplomatic tools,” the report warned.
The background memo is intended to provide guidance for Americans to remain vigilant when targeted by China’s influence operations.
“Through its united front strategy, which Xi Jinping has called a ‘magic weapon,’ the Chinese Communist Party is using every tool at its disposal, both legal and illegal, to influence the American people and interfere with democratic societies,” said chairman Mike Gallagher. , R-Wis., said in a statement.
“An important but little understood aspect of the Chinese Communist Party’s disinformation, propaganda, and influence efforts, both in the People’s Republic of China and beyond, is the CCP’s united front system. This background memo provides information on the united front’s activities and can be a potentially useful guide in addressing and countering them,” added ranking member Raja Khrishnamoorthi, D-Calif.
President Joe Biden met with Chinese leader Xi Jinping two weeks ago as concerns skyrocketed on issues like TaiwanBeijing’s actions in the South China Naval sanctions, increased espionage, trade and human rights.
The purpose of the united front work is to help China take over Taiwan and establish a new world order that revolves around the values and interests of the CCP.
The United Front Work Department (UFWD), which reports to the CCP, controls ostensibly non-governmental groups such as academic institutions, non-profit organizations and the media. It also monitors groups operating within the US: the National Association for China’s Peaceful Reunification, which operates in the Washington, DC area, and the Alliance for China’s Peaceful Reunification, US.
The UFWD “also played a central role in formulating, implementing and defending policies to ‘Sinicize’ China’s ethnic minorities, including the ongoing genocide of the Uyghurs in Xinjiang,” the memo said.
The CCP uses groups affiliated with the United Front to monitor and track Uyghurs and mobilize propaganda to counter criticism of its treatment of the Muslim minority group.
The memo continued: “In addition to promoting narratives favorable to the CCP abroad, the UFWD gathers intelligence, controls overseas Chinese-language media outlets, attempts to influence Chinese diaspora groups, facilitates illegal technology transfers, and interferes in politics in other countries. countries, including by co-opting and influencing foreign academic, political and business elites.
“The networks built by the UFWD are often viewed as a primary base of operations by the PRC’s intelligence services, which seek to recruit members of united front organizations to support espionage and influence operations,” the report continues.
The memo warns that the united front’s work focuses on targeting key groups to convince contacts to spread their messages: members of China’s eight minor parties, those without political ties, non-CCP intellectuals, ethnic minorities, religious leaders, business leaders and ethnic Chinese living abroad. .
It reminded me of earlier this year when the FBI arrested two Chinese agents on suspicion of running an illegal police station in downtown Manhattan to spy on and harass dissidents on American soil.
In addition, 44 Chinese nationals were accused by federal prosecutors of waging a surveillance and intimidation campaign against dissidents living in the US.
According to a report by the advocacy group Safeguard Defenders, as many as six illegal Chinese police stations were operating in the US at the beginning of this year.
After the Chinese police stations were exposed, a DailyMail.com report revealed that Chinese “community centers” in San Francisco, Nebraska and Houston were suspected of collaborating with the CCP.
In recent months, FBI counterintelligence officials have intensified their hunt for Chinese efforts to recruit spies in the US. The CIA, meanwhile, would focus on Xi and find out what his ambitions are for Taiwan.
At least seven contracts remain active in Texas, Kentucky, Minnesota, Oklahoma, Oregon and Washington
The Chinese Civic Center in Houston also has links to Beijing, DailyMail.com has discovered
DailyMail.com has identified the locations of three Chinese “community centers” in the US, including the Chinese American Association in San Francisco (above), which an NGO suspects are run by an arm of the Chinese Communist Party known for ‘silence’. his critics
Last summer, a report from the advocacy group Parents Defending Education found that the CCP has pumped about $17 million into primary and secondary education in the US.
The close coordination between the CCP and American schools to establish Confucius classrooms historically included 143 school districts in 34 states and Washington, DC. At least seven contracts are still active in Texas, Kentucky, Minnesota, Oklahoma, Oregon and Washington.
It also states that the CCP has “ties to school districts near 20 U.S. military bases” and has infiltrated three of the country’s top science and technology high schools.