Tag Archive for: China

Knock, knock? We’re on a path to extinction! Anyone interested?

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South Korea just broke its own grim record, reporting the world’s lowest fertility rate at 0.78 children per woman. An unprecedented birth dearth.

South Korea is supposedly a “wealthy” country, but it will not be wealthy without children. The disappearance of East Asia and their ancient cultures proceeds apace. Japan and China are already shrinking with no end in sight. So many young people are not even interested in dating. What for? They have smartphones, video games and social media.

The same situation plagues the West. In what was once known as Christendom – Europe, Russia, the Anglosphere, Latin America – Christianity is being supplanted by thoroughly modern secularism. “Go forth and multiply” does not apply.

Fertility is falling everywhere. Why?

In prehistoric times, natural selection prevailed. Those best able to adapt survived and produced more offspring. Charles Darwin is credited with the discovery of this principle, though he simply rendered reality into writing. Natural selection became the basis for his theory of evolution.

For people at the mercy of the elements, death was a constant companion. The bearing of children just came naturally to perpetuate family and tribe. The survival instinct was strong. Five-star restaurants, two-car garages and family planning were unknown.

Then came civilization. Sustained commerce between small settlements and the rise of agriculture spawned economies and social stability. Between 4000 and 3000 BC full-fledged civilizations arose. Finding food, clothing and shelter was no longer a do-or-die proposition. Large-scale cooperation emerged. Natural selection gave way to social selection. Civilization presented diversions such as art, science, education, politics, wealth, leisure, and power.

Fast forward to the 19th century. In 1800 no transportation system rivaled the old Roman roads. Nor was there a postal service as proficient as Caesar’s. That changed with the Industrial Revolution. The Idea of Progress, the belief that history ineluctably proceeds towards material well-being and a better life, took hold and superseded religious faith. This belief emerged from Enlightenment empiricism. Mankind had come to believe in itself: Master of the Universe. Modernism was born.

Modernism was inextricably linked with progress. What great things humanity can do! How could anyone possibly argue with that? Modernism is defined by the Oxford dictionary:

A tendency in theology to accommodate traditional religious teaching to contemporary thought and especially to devalue supernatural elements.

According to Merriam-Webster it is:

a movement toward modifying traditional beliefs in accordance with modern ideas, especially in the Roman Catholic Church in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Note the words “accommodate” and “modifying.” It’s not rocket science – religious faith, traditional values and common sense were subordinated to “modern” notions of “liberty, equality and fraternity.” In the West that eventually morphed into “diversity, equity and inclusion” (DEI).

Where is the family in all this? Good question. Modernism continually moves the goal posts. In the West the very definitions of marriage, family and morality are up for debate. Moral relativism destroys social cohesion, a form of “social security” money can’t buy. That is gone in the West and fading fast in the East.

The West’s Industrial Revolution, along with the utopian Idea of Progress, eventually took hold worldwide. The prevailing wisdom was that humanity was improving. The New Soviet Man concept is just one example.

But humanity was not improving. It was the same old humanity thriving under improved conditions – e.g., rising living standards, a critical distinction. Are we really more intelligent or somehow cognitively superior to the ancient Greeks or Persians? Will we ever learn that all the DEI social engineering in the world does not change human nature?

Modernism’s materialism, consumerism and convenience are secular values. How can God, faith, or belief in the transcendent help me get ahead in this world? Well, there’s the Prosperity Gospel. But I digress.

With the advent of Modernism, civilization’s diversions – art, science, politics, wealth, leisure and power – became preoccupations, ends in themselves, at the expense of family. We slipped our spiritual moorings.

Modernism’s mammon mania means that nothing should impede the pursuit of prosperity. We have creature comforts and high-tech gadgets galore. The old “bread and circuses for the masses” has long been surpassed. Materially things are better. What could go wrong?

But are we homo sapiens getting ahead of ourselves?

Has the complexity of civilization exceeded the human capacity to maintain and manage it, akin to a structural overload in engineering? Gleaming civilization with all its baubles and accoutrements has blinded us to certain eternal truths. Losing faith means losing our moral compass and survival instinct. Christianity is wilting in the West. The fatalistic Oswald Spengler said that when the continuation of your kind on earth becomes a matter of debate, it’s over. (To give you a taste of Spengler, he’s the guy who said, “Optimism is cowardice”.)

Absent religious faith or a common Zeitgeist larger than ourselves, civilization can mutate from benefit to burden.

Burden? Progress is a double-edge sword. The environment is fouled for economic gain. Institutions master rather than serve humanity. Perpetual mortgage and credit card debt must be serviced. Unfettered by faith, moral constraints or a common ethos, misery abounds. Artificial intelligence is amazing, but it is also a dehumanizing job-killer.

Modernism prioritizes economic growth, imperialism, and affluence. Everything, including people, is valued solely for economic utility. Mammon mania undermines the family. People choose between family and career as if there is a moral equivalency. For humanity at large, that is choosing between life or death. The produce-and-consume treadmill holds us captive to the lust/need for lucre. No creature breeds well in captivity.

Governments are devising all manner of schemes to reverse falling fertility. Hungary and Scandinavia are leading the way with subsidized childcare, affordable housing and expanded parental leave. It is too early to assess the impact. China is crafting the world’s most comprehensive fertility initiative to date. This includes mapping data on unmarried youth.

Japan has initiated a government-sponsored dating service. The Japanese call it konkatsu, or “marriage hunting.

Russia propagandizes for larger families. President Vladimir Putin has revived Josef Stalin’s Mother Heroine award of US$16,000 for mothers who bear ten children or more.

China, Russia, Hungary, and other countries are restricting abortion. With shrinking populations many are becoming aware of the critical necessity to choose life.

There is talk of taxing the childless. Renowned demographer Dr Paul Morland floated the idea in his Sunday Times op-ed “Should We Tax the Childless?” His reasoning: “We are approaching a population emergency, and if well-informed people cannot discuss these matters, the field is left to cranks and fanatics.” The idea was not well received; one magazine described it as a “rage-inducing viral masterclass”.

There is already overseas “bride-hunting” to compensate for gender deficits. The Faroe Islands is an example. There is even chatter about importing women from higher-fertility countries for breeding purposes, akin to livestock management.

Here’s an idea. Redefine prosperity in terms of intact families and children, rather than in fungible fiat currency per household.

Family life is being sacrificed on the altar of modernity. Shouldn’t government be doing some of the sacrificing? Multiple military bases, ginormous stadiums and over-the-top infrastructure projects are not as important as survival. Fund family-friendly initiatives instead.

How about meaningful tax relief for the middle class? In the US, real wages (those adjusted for inflation) have not risen since the 1970s. With everyone busy working, homes become dormitories. Living to work is unhealthy.

Reconfigure national economies and pay (bribe) people to have children. With our very survival at stake, just do it. But what does that say about our values?

As Henry David Thoreau observed, “There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root.” Tight money is merely a symptom contributing to the family’s decline. The root cause is spiritual.

The world is ageing because we are not replacing ourselves. Why? The family is no longer the center of life. Children are a bother. They’re too expensive. It doesn’t matter if we die out. The survival instinct is gone. Is a brave new dystopian world ahead?

The most advanced civilization can’t fool Mother Nature. Is this natural selection coming back?

Humans, those self-aware bipeds with prominent prefrontal cortexes, emerged about 300,000 years ago. Civilization has been around only 6,000 years. Is civilization an aberration? Are we regressing to barbarism?

Modernism has failed. We’re on the path to extinction. The world’s most productive populations are the fastest declining.

The future of the family depends on individual and societal priorities. Priorities reside in hearts and minds. Only spiritual rebirth can turn things around.

How can we help that happen?

AUTHOR

Louis T. March

Louis T. March has a background in government, business and philanthropy. A former talk show host, author and public speaker, he is a dedicated student of history and genealogy. Louis lives with his family… More by Louis T. March.

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EDITORS NOTE: This MercatorNet column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

Joe Biden’s Hydrogen Slush Fund Means More Dollars Wasted On The Green Energy Boondoggle

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Nearly 50 years ago in 1976, congress authorized the Hydrogen Program managed by the National Science Foundation. Then in 1983, Bush and Congress threw more money at hydrogen as an alternative energy source.

Last year Congress and Biden, in their infrastructure bill, created a $9.5 billion dollar hydrogen slush fund. The Europeans have also authorized $5.2 billion euros for their hydro slush fund.

Since 1839, scientists have been working on hydrogen for energy and storage with little to show for it. The future of green hydrogen is just as dull. Brown and grey hydrogen, made with CO2 creating coal or natural gas (CH4) makes reasonably priced hydrogen now.

Hydrogen is not a fuel. It must be created and is only a way of storing and transporting energy. All of which are difficult, expensive and there is no infrastructure to support it.

This $9.5 billion slush fund is a breeding ground for multiple Solyndras. Solyndra was 1/3 of the 1.5 billion-dollar taxpayer loss on Obama’s solar revolution.

The Biden administration has authorized a half billion loan guarantee for a green hydrogen hub in Delta, Utah. Never mind that green hydrogen requires huge volumes of water and Delta is on the edge of the desert, and the entire southwest is chronically short of water. Or that Utah today only gets 4% of its electricity from wind and solar.

There is no “excess” wind and solar to create green hydrogen in Utah. (RELATED: DAVID BLACKMON: Greta Thunberg’s Solution For Climate Change — End Modern Life As We Know It)

Building a green hydrogen hub in a very dry place with very little “renewable” energy is not wise; some would even call it stupid. The Biden administration needs a talking point to a fix the recently admitted unreliability problem of wind and solar. So common sense and fiscal responsibility are unnecessary.

Our electric grids need full-time demand matching electricity, or we have blackouts. There is a dawning realization by the climate religion, there isn’t enough lithium in the world, over the next few decades, to build tens of millions of electric vehicles and industrial scale grid batteries too.

In addition, lithium batteries cannot store the abundant solar power California has in the sunny mild winter for use in hot July. The energy will have left those batteries long before July rolls around.

Hence, the expensive talking point of green hydrogen was born.

Making green hydrogen takes a lot of energy. About 35% more energy than the created hydrogen stores. Then you lose another 30% when you transport and use it. Hydrogen yields only 35% of the energy input. It is a real energy loser.

Making green hydrogen requires 13 times more water, sea water has to be desalinated first, and additional water for cooling. Then heat the water to 2,000 degrees and electrocute it, freeing oxygen into the air and hydrogen into the factory. Then super chill to near-absolute zero. Then compress it to 10,000 psi, which is three times the psi of an average scuba tank.

Super cold liquid hydrogen is born.

It can be used for fuel cells and burned in electric producing power plants instead of natural gas. We get far more bang for our buck with natural gas rather than create electricity to make green hydrogen, only to burn it again, to make electricity using a process that costs 65% of the energy.

The whole concept of using wind and solar to produce green hydrogen has an elephant-in-the-room type problem.

The Industrial Four Step process of making hydrogen isn’t something that can be started on sunny mornings and stopped in the late afternoon. Or fired up when the wind starts blowing and then shut down when the wind stops. What will keep the hydrogen process flowing on dark windless nights?

Does a green dreamer care to answer that? Do the facts matter? Heck, it is only federal borrowed money anyway. Hydrogen is just another form of political greenwashing at the American people’s expense.

We need to stop the wasteful spending of taxpayer money — money we don’t have — on green boondoggles before it is too late.

Before the communist Chinese, who use more than half of the 8 billion tons of coal as their primary fuel source (60% of total energy), eat our lunch and rule the world, Americans need to wake up to the dangerous threats of the green energy nightmare and the rising threat of the Red Chinese Dragon before it is too late!

The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of the Daily Caller News Foundation.

AUTHOR

FRANK LASEE

Frank Lasee is a former Wisconsin state senator and former member of Governor Scott Walker’s administration. The district he represented had two nuclear power plants, a biomass plant and numerous wind towers. He has experience with energy, the environment, and the climate. You can read more energy and climate information at www.truthinenergyandclimate.com which Frankleads.

RELATED ARTICLE: Biden Says He’s Not Planning To Visit East Palestine ‘At This Moment’

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As Train Derailments and Tensions with China Unfold, Experts See Crisis in U.S. Leadership

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As yet another massive train derailment unfolded in Nebraska on Tuesday in the wake of the controversial federal response to the derailment disaster that has engulfed East Palestine, Ohio, experts are seeing a connection between the responses to both East Palestine and the recent aggressive actions of the Chinese regime: failed and incompetent American leadership.

“It’s a disaster,” said Rep. Tim Burchett (R-Tenn.) on Wednesday’s edition of “Washington Watch with Tony Perkins.” “There again [in East Palestine], you have an administration that just checks a box. They don’t — [as] I always say — put the best players in, coach.”

Burchett went on to give a blunt assessment of the job performance of Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg, who formerly served as the mayor of South Bend, Ind. Buttigieg has received strong criticism for his department’s slow response to the East Palestine train derailment, which exposed the town to dangerous toxic chemicals and caused mass evacuations.

“This guy is a disaster. We’ve seen this time and time again. I was a county mayor. You know, I did crazy things like pay down debt and get the county out of everybody’s business and was able to keep taxes [low] and actually give pay raises. So I know what it takes to be a mayor, but I’m not qualified to be secretary of transportation. And there’s no way in the world this guy is. … He’s a charade. I met him. I know him. I guess I like him as a person, but it’s just all a charade.”

President Biden is also facing growing backlash over his decision to make a surprise trip to Ukraine and announce additional expansive aid to the country while still having not visited East Palestine or offered federal aid to the town.

“You have a president who sent [almost] $100 billion to Ukraine and he won’t even pay a visit to his own people,” Burchett observed. “These globalists have got to stop. … And blaming it on the Trump administration when they’ve had two years of untethered liberal Marxist policies and spending is falling on deaf ears.”

Burchett further noted that the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, on which he sits, will be conducting oversight on the government response to the East Palestine disaster.

“Speaker [Kevin] McCarthy (R-Calif.) has said every committee will have an oversight facet to it, which is what Congress really originally set out to do. And … that’s not what [was done] under Democrat leadership. But now it has changed since January. As they say, there’s a new sheriff in town, and his name is Kevin McCarthy — and he is keeping his word.”

Meanwhile, concerns over increasingly close ties between China and Russia are growing. Shortly after Biden’s visit to Ukraine, China’s top foreign affairs official visited Russian President Vladimir Putin at the Kremlin, where the two countries announced “new levels of co-operation.” Experts fear that China senses weakness in U.S. leadership and is preparing to give Russia military aid.

Burchett, who also sits on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, underscored fears about the weak position the U.S. finds itself in in the wake of the spy balloon incident.

“This deal with Ukraine, the Chinese are watching. I had breakfast with [former] Secretary Pompeo … and he said, ‘Look, Tim, they know how many paperclips are going into your building.’ The Chinese are taking notes of all of this. They’re watching our supply chain. They’re watching the political response to this thing. This balloon issue — the first one was a spy balloon. And now [China is] watching us shoot down party balloons with $435,000 Sidewinder missiles.”

Burchett also noted the highly controversial advice of General Mark Milley, Chairmen of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, to not shoot down China’s spy balloon until it had crossed the entire continental U.S. in early February. Biden took Milley’s advice and waited until the balloon floated off the coast of South Carolina before shooting it down.

“This is the general that, if you remember in the final days of the Trump administration, was in secret negotiations with China — our enemy,” Burchett observed. “We have a president of the United States whose cognitive level has dropped considerably.”

Burchett went on to give straightforward advice to conservatives in the days ahead. “I tell people, my friends in the church, [who] say, ‘What can we do?’ I say, ‘Pray for your country and vote.’ Because 20 million so-called evangelical Christians stayed home in these last elections. And that’s how Joe Biden is president of the United States.”

Perkins concurred. “We’ve got to flood the polls at every election with our folks and overwhelm any shenanigans that they’re engaged in.”

AUTHOR

Dan Hart

Dan Hart is senior editor at The Washington Stand.

The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

Chinese Communists ‘Hope to Erase’ Christianity: Report

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Last August 25, several faithful gathered around one of the largest churches in China’s Shanxi province to watch it dissolve into dust. Chinese Communist Party (CCP) authorities had planted explosives inside Beihan Catholic Church, bringing its 131-foot-tall bell tower crashing to the ground. In a bout of déjà vu, the 10-year-old church had been built on the site of another church, which the CCP demolished in 1990.

Many Chinese religious systems believe in reincarnation — but in Communist-controlled China, a cycle of destruction repeats itself for Christians, according to a comprehensive, 63-page report from ChinaAid.

The Chinese Communist Party has continued to destroy churches, arrest and abuse Christians, forcibly “disappear” clergy, prevent believers from expressing their faith online, and attempt to coerce Christians into proclaiming Marxist principles from the pulpit in place of the Holy Bible. The report’s “partial list of persecution cases in 2022,” broken down by province, takes up 20 pages.

“The CCP implemented various strategies against Christians in 2022. By using the new measures against religious content online and the infamous zero-COVID policy, authorities limited or eliminated Christian gatherings,” recounted ChinaAid President Bob Fu. “By using charges of ‘fraud,’ the Chinese government financially suffocated the house church movement.”

The report details the forcible disappearance of 10 clergy from Hebei prince’s Xuanhua diocese — including two Roman Catholic bishops — and another 10 priests in the province’s Baoding diocese. Those allowed to remain in the country may be forced out of their ministry by government interference. Fengwo Township Religion Bureau showed up at a church last January to tell parishioners the bureau deemed their pastor, Huang Yizi, unfit to preach sermons, because of his arrest record — for refusing government orders to remove public crosses.

The government has told Christians not to evangelize, preach, print, proselytize, or in some cases pray — especially in the name of Jesus. While preventing many registered churches from worshiping in person, allegedly to stop the spread of COVID-19, Jiangsu province also made it a crime “to illegally preach online, give sermons, interpret scriptures, chant,” etc. Police visited churches that persevered. “Village cadres came to me yesterday and asked me not to preach religion on WeChat. Now we are not even allowed to say the word Jesus in our prayers, or ‘trust in the Savior,’” one Chinese citizen told her U.S.-based family.

The government also tried to prohibit Christians from carrying out their scripturally mandated duty to pray for those in authority. “Our church has received orders from government officials. Now when we pray in WeChat groups, we’re not allowed to say, ‘We pray for those in power,’ let alone pray for President Xi Jinping by name or ask God to make him repent. These are all forbidden now. Some of us used to pray for China’s top government leaders, but that’s not allowed anymore,” another believer told a family member who had emigrated. “We don’t know if we can still pray together in WeChat groups after this March.”

To stifle the growth of house churches, the government has treated tithing and other standard Christian economic activities as a form of “fraud.” In July, police arrested Pastor Qin Sifeng and coworker Su Minjun of Beijing Lampstand Church for “illegal business activities” when it printed hymns for the church to sing. Officials have repeatedly postponed their trial, originally scheduled for last November, effectively imprisoning them indefinitely. Others received swift, crushing punishment. Officers arrested a believing couple, Chang Yuchun and Li Chenhui, in December 2021 for printing Christian books; last May, a court sentenced them to seven years in prison and a fine of nearly $37,000 (U.S.).

The report notes the heart of the persecution campaign: the determination to follow through with what the CCP called the “Sinicization of Religion” at the Chinese Communist Party’s 20th national Congress last October 16. The party demands churches teach Communist principles and revise religious dogma in light of socialism.

“Their goal is not only to curate a ‘socialist-friendly’ church; they hope to erase it,” said Fu. “Previously, they asked for sole allegiance to the Communist Party, but since the 20th National Party Congress, they shifted their emphasis to aligning with Xi Jinping.”

To this end, government officials insist the church cede the education of children to the secular, socialist state. Last May, CCP officials reminded college graduates and students of their official policy: “No one may use religion to carry out activities that obstruct the national education system.” They have effected this policy by shutting down church-operated schools, including the Wenzhou Bowen Bible School and Wenzhou Bible School in Zhejiang province last August, or fining those who hold religious education conferences nearly $21,000 (U.S.). Fined people who rented out facilities to a church school and illegally held a human rights lawyer who represented Christians under house arrest.

These measures likely violate the wording of the Chinese constitution, which states Chinese citizens “enjoy freedom of religious belief” and the right to attend “normal” services — but the document, written by Communists, does not define normal services.

The problem of religious persecution is as old as Marxism itself. Karl Marx considered religion the opiate of the masses. Yet suppression of Christians appears to have intensified as China has gained economic and military strength over the last two decades. The U.S. State Department has classified the People’s Republic of China as a “Country of Particular Concern” since 1999.

The CCP faces credible and consistent charges of committing “deaths in custody and that the government tortured, physically abused, arrested, disappeared, detained, sentenced to prison, subjected to forced labor and forced indoctrination in CCP ideology, and harassed adherents of both registered and unregistered religious groups for activities related to their religious beliefs and practices,” noted the State Department’s most recent report on Chinese religious freedom, published last June.

Despite their oppression, Chinese Christians remain resilient. Last February 20, “Christian activist Zhou Jinxia held up a sign to preach the gospel to Xi Jinping,” knowing it would result in arrest.

China Aid’s new report coincides with an emboldened China that has increasingly begun saber-rattling, provocatively sending spy craft to hover over the U.S. mainland. While the CCP has begun “brazenly pushing the limits, to see how far they can go,” said the chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, Rep. Mark Green, R-Tenn. “President Biden’s administration has consistently demonstrated weakness, showing a willingness to act against adversaries like the Chinese Communist Party only after the public outcry was so deafening that they could not ignore it,” Rep. Green told The Daily Signal.

This overseas aggression has bled into the CCP’s treatment of Christians, as officials have attempted to reach beyond its own shores to harass or kidnap ethnic Chinese living in the United States. They also sanctioned Family Research Council President Tony Perkins.

“The international community needs to know about these trends and developments” of Beijing’s persecution of Christians “as China continues to rise on the global stage,” said Fu. Unless Western Christians stand up for their brethren, Chinese Christians believe the cycle of destruction will continue.

AUTHOR

Ben Johnson

Ben Johnson is senior reporter and editor at The Washington Stand.

EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

Rep. Judy Chu Was Named ‘Honorary Chairwoman’ Of Alleged Chinese Intel Front Group

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California Democratic Rep. Judy Chu was appointed to a leadership position within an alleged Chinese Communist Party (CCP) intelligence front group in 2019, according to a Daily Caller News Foundation investigation.

In August 2019, Chu was named “honorary chairwoman” of the Forums for Peaceful Reunification of China, an organization which opposes Taiwan’s independence, according to a DCNF translation of multiple sources. However, the U.S.-China Economic Security and Review Commission (USCC) has previously identified the organization as serving a CCP “intelligence service,” while multiple experts told the DCNF that they agreed with USCC’s determination.

Chu and the Forums for Peaceful Reunification of China did not respond to the DCNF’s request for comment.

The Forums for Peaceful Reunification of China is one of 33 anti-Taiwan independence organizations in the U.S. which serve as subchapters of the China Council for the Promotion of Peaceful National Reunification (CCPPNR), an organization USCC labeled as “directly subordinate” to the United Front Work Department (UFWD) in 2018.

The UFWD’s “primary missions” are to “liaison with foreign political parties,” “influence operations” and “intelligence collection,” the USCC has stated, and, towards that end, the CCP deploys UFWD operatives around the world to “co-opt and neutralize” potential opposition groups such as “ethnic minorities, religious groups and intellectuals.”

The Forums for Peaceful Reunification of China appointed Chu their “honorary chairwoman” during the 34th inauguration ceremony of the organization’s executive committee held at the Capital Seafood restaurant in Monterey Park on August 23, 2019, according to a DCNF translation of an article by the Las Vegas Chinese News Network and the website of another UFWD affiliate.

Several experts on Chinese intelligence operations confirmed that the Forums for Peaceful Reunification of China is a Chinese intelligence influence operation connected to the UFWD after reviewing Chinese government websites, USCC’s report and Chinese-language news sources.

“They are the same organization,” Russell Hsiao, executive director of the Global Taiwan Institute, told the DCNF.

Hsiao cited a 2013 article by Chinese state-run media outlet People’s Daily, which, among other things, highlighted the groups links to the Los Angeles Chinese Consulate as well as other groups in southern California allegedly tied to the CCP.

“Yes, absolutely,” Dr. June Tuefel Dreyer, former USCC commissioner, told the DCNF. “I don’t think they’re working very hard to hide that.”

Despite the organization’s apparent UFWD ties, U.S. authorities may still misjudge the group as a mere “social organization,” Dreyer said.

“Anyone with basic understanding of Chinese language, China-Taiwan relations, and the politics of related affinity groups within the United States would easily see similarities between the problematic United Front organization identified by the USCC and its southern California chapter where Rep. Judy Chu appears to have been appointed honorary chair,” Steve Yates, former Chinese language analyst for the National Security Agency, told the DCNF.

Chu received a signed English certificate at the August 2019 event from Guo Zhiming, the incoming “chairman” of the Forums for Peaceful Reunification of China, stating that her appointment was in recognition of her “outstanding friendship and support,” according to photos of the event posted by the Las Vegas Chinese News Network.

Chu advocated against Taiwan’s independence at the event, stating that she wished for China and Taiwan “to become one family,” according to a DCNF translation of an archived article posted by the Alliance for China’s Peaceful Reunification USA (ACPRUSA), an anti-Taiwan independence organization also listed as one of CCPPNR’s 33 U.S. chapters.

While the full range of duties expected from the “honorary chairwoman” of the Forums for Peaceful Reunification of China remains unclear, during the 2019 event, Chu served as a ceremony “witness” and “supervised” the transfer of the organization’s official seal between the outgoing and incoming chairmen, according to a DCNF translation of ACPRUSA’s website.

It also remains unclear whether or not Chu continues to serve as the organization’s “honorary chairwoman” or is still involved with the organization in any capacity.

“Getting American leaders to be seen standing against the will of the Taiwan people in favor of Beijing’s position is a core objective of the United Front,” Yates told the DCNF. “In name and in substance, such leaders allow themselves to be used as a tool to demoralize Taiwan and empower a government who spends every moment of every day undermining American interests and American allies.”

However, Chu’s 2019 appointment as “honorary chairwoman” of the alleged UFWD front group appears in contrast with her previous public support for Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen’s visit to the U.S. in August 2018, as reported by Politico, during which time Chu and two other congressmen welcomed Tsai at the Los Angeles airport.

In August 2022, Chu claimed that she’d “always supported Taiwan” prior to former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s trip to Taiwan, CNN reported. Yet, at the time, Chu also never offered firm support for Pelosi’s visit either, claiming that she’d “leave it up to those who are going to make that decision,” according to CNN.

More recently, Rep. Chu voted against the formation of the House Select Committee on Jan. 10, whose agenda includes investigating how the U.S. can better combat CCP espionage as well as how the U.S. military should counter Beijing’s increasingly belligerent actions in the waters around Taiwan. While justifying her vote, Chu claimed that the committee could spur anti-Asian violence, according to a statement released by the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus (CAPAC), which Chu chairs.

The revelations surrounding Rep. Chu’s role in the Forums for Peaceful Reunification of China comes after the DCNF revealed that Chu has served as the “honorary president” of the All America Chinese Youth Federation since 2012, an organization whose leadership includes several individuals who’ve belonged to alleged front groups serving the CCP’s UFWD.

Rep. Chu’s involvement with the Forums for Peaceful Reunification of China began as early as March 2012, when the California congresswoman attended an inaugural ceremony for the organization’s 19th executive committee, Chinese government records reveal. In addition to Chu, the ceremony was also attended by Qiu Shaofang, former consul general of the Los Angeles Consulate, according to the records.

The Forums for Peaceful Reunification of China has apparently coordinated closely with the Chinese government and the Los Angeles Chinese Consulate in particular, the DCNF determined, with Chinese government sources recording more than half a dozen official meetings between consular officials and the alleged UFWD front group between 2005 and 2014 alone.

The Forums for Peaceful Reunification of China has also apparently worked closely with CCPPNR since its inception, with CCPPNR’s “deputy secretary general” Wang Changyu, a CCP member, having attended the organization’s founding ceremony in Los Angeles in August 2002, according to a DCNF translation of CCPPNR’s website.

Similarly, the former “chairman” of the Forums for Peaceful Reunification of China, Zhou Dezhao, traveled to Beijing in 2015 to meet with CCPPNR’s “honorary president,” according to DCNF translations of CCPPNR’s website.

“Zhou is without a doubt connected to [the Forums for Peaceful Reunification of China] and served as its 32nd rotating chairman from 2017 to 2018,” Hsiao told the DCNF, while identifying Zhou standing near Rep. Chu within a photo from the aforementioned 2019 event.

Zhou did not respond to the DCNF’s questions regarding the nature of the relationship between CCPPNR and the Forums for Peaceful Reunification of China.

Dreyer told the DCNF that the leadership of the Forums for Peaceful Reunification of China and related UFWD front groups were certainly “aware” that the organization was working with the Chinese government.

“The reason they’re chosen as leaders is because they are amenable to the Chinese Communist government’s message,” said Dreyer. “The leaderships share the core directorate, so to speak; they take orders from the same entity.”

CCPPNR’s front groups have spread propaganda “closely aligned” with official CCP propaganda, The Jamestown Foundation, a Washington, D.C., think tank, reported in 2018. The Jamestown Foundation cited a statement from the website of the National Association for China’s Peaceful Unification (NACPU), which insisted that the “U.S. government and Congress” agree not to fight in a “possible war” between Beijing and Taipei “caused by the provocation of separatism in Taiwan.”

Conversely, some members of CCPPNR’s front groups may also simply see their membership in “opportunistic terms of networking, and of signaling loyalty to the Chinese government — with the potential benefits that may follow — rather than as a means to effect substantive change in U.S. policy,” The Jamestown Foundation reported.

The Chinese Consulate did not respond immediately to the DCNF’s request for comment.

AUTHOR

PHILIP LENCZYCKI

Daily Caller News Foundation investigative reporter, political journalist, and China watcher. Twitter: @LenczyckiPhilip

RELATED ARTICLE: Dem Rep Who Opposed New China Committee Serves On Non-Profit That Shares Staff With Alleged Chinese Intel Front Groups

EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Caller column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved. All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

‘No Comparison’: Rubio Shuts Down Comparisons Between Trump And Biden Over Chinese Balloon

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Republican Florida Sen. Marco Rubio said Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union” that there is “no comparison” between the Trump administration and Biden administration over their respective handling of Chinese surveillance balloons.

The U.S. took down the spy balloon Saturday afternoon after the craft was spotted floating over several states over multiple days, including Idaho and Montana. The Pentagon was tracking the balloon as it headed eastward over the Carolinas before hovering above the Atlantic Ocean. U.S. military jets were seen flying near the balloon while there were several recovery vessels in the waters below.

Tapper first asked what type of information the spy balloon may have been able to gather, with Rubio stating that while he doesn’t have a definitive answer on what type of information was collected but said the larger takeaway is that the balloon sent a “clear message.”

“I think beyond just the ability to collect information, it is the ability to send a clear message, and that is that we have the ability to do this and America can’t do anything about it,” Rubio said. “If they’re not going to be able to stop a balloon from flying over U.S. airspace, how is America going to come to your aid if we invade Taiwan, take land from India, or Islands from the Philippines and Japan?”

“The Pentagon says they know of Chinese doing this four other times, previously once at the beginning of the Biden administration, three times during the Trump administration,” Tapper said. “You’re saying ‘no, that’s not true’?”

“No, what I’m saying – well the difference is this,” Rubio said. “Have we seen the Chinese fly these balloons in the past? Yes. I think there’s Twitter pictures of it flying at one point off the coast of the U.S. down south somewhere. The existence of the balloons is not a mystery to people in that field. What we’ve never seen, what is unprecedented and whoever the source is at the Department of Defense would have to acknowledge this, what is unprecedented is a balloon flight that entered over Idaho, over Montana, over all these sensitive military installations, Air Force bases, ICBM fields, right across the middle of the country, that has never happened before, that’s unprecedented.”

“That it flew briefly over some part of the continental U.S., that’s one thing,” Rubio continued. “But what we saw this week, this is unprecedented. This is no comparison anything that may have happened up to this point.”

The Department of Defense released a statement Thursday claiming that “instances of this kind of balloon activity have been observed previously over the past several years.”

Former Defense Sec. Mark Esper, who served in the Trump administration from July 2019 through November 2020 said he was “surprised” to hear comparisons being drawn, noting he does not recall any similar incident during his time in office.

“I don’t ever recall somebody coming into my office or reading anything that the Chinese had a surveillance balloon above the United States.”

“I would remember that for sure,” he added, while on CNN.

AUTHOR

BRIANNA LYMAN

News and commentary writer.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Caller column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

Dem Rep Who Opposed New China Committee Serves On Non-Profit That Shares Staff With Alleged Chinese Intel Front Groups

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A Democratic congresswoman serves on a non-profit which has shared multiple personnel with alleged Chinese intelligence front groups, a Daily Caller News Foundation investigation found.

California Democratic Rep. Judy Chu joined the All America Chinese Youth Federation (AACYF) in 2012 and remains listed as “honorary president” on the 501(c)(3) non-profit’s website, according to a DCNF translation. During Chu’s tenure at AACYF, its leadership has included multiple individuals who’ve belonged to China-based organizations that allegedly operate as front groups for a Chinese intelligence service.

The DCNF located Chu’s Chinese name, Zhao Meixin, within a New York Times article and matched it with AACYF’s records to determine her membership. Chu did not respond to the DCNF’s request for comment.

Although it remains unclear what specific responsibilities Chu has as AACYF’s “honorary president,” the congresswoman has led events held by the organization, such as during a November 2013 Silicon Valley tech summit where Chu served as “chairman,” according to a DCNF translation of AACYF’s website.

Five of AACYF’s leaders who’ve served at the non-profit during Chu’s tenure have belonged to organizations allegedly serving a Chinese government agency tasked with overseeing and coordinating CCP influence operations, the DCNF determined. The so-called United Front Work Department (UFWD) has been identified by government agencies, legislative bodies and experts as a central organ of CCP influence efforts, and experts also say UFWD works in concert with Chinese intelligence operatives.

“There is no exact counterpart in the United States for what [the UFWD] does,” Dr. John Lenczowski, former director of European and Soviet Affairs at the National Security Council under President Ronald Reagan, told the DCNF. “There is a strategic integration between the intelligence services and the UFWD in a way that has no parallel between U.S. intelligence, and, say, the National Endowment for Democracy, or even the State Department in its public diplomacy activities.”

“The reality of it is that the Chinese have been conducting a Cold War and we’ve not,” Lenczowski said.

The CCP’s UFWD “cultivates and controls pervasive networks of affiliates around the world” and has thereby secured “unchallenged direction” over large numbers of overseas Chinese “organizations and Chinese-language media, providing infrastructure for corruption, political interference and malign influence,” the 2020 House China Task Force report stated.

“This is what the communists do,” Brandon Weichert, a consultant to the U.S. Air Force, told the DCNF. “They create front organizations in countries that are open societies, like ours, to try to surreptitiously influence events, businesses and leaders in those countries to shape them into acting in accordance with China’s national interest and strategic needs.”

“In many cases, the players involved are sort of useful idiots or willing dupes. In some cases, they’re fellow travelers,” Weichert added.

‘Facts and Reality’

Rep. Chu recently voted against the formation of the House Select Committee tasked with examining, among other things, Chinese influence in the United States. In defense of her vote, Chu claimed that the initiative could lead to anti-Asian violence, according to a statement released by the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus (CAPAC), which Chu chairs.

CAPAC did not respond to the DCNF’s request for comment.

California Republican Rep. Mike Garcia told the DCNF that Chu’s vote against the formation of the select committee on China ignored “facts and reality.” Garcia told the DCNF that the new committee, which Wisconsin Republican Rep. Mike Gallagher is slated to lead, will “combat the CCP, not the Chinese people.”

“The vast majority of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle supported the creation of this committee,” Garcia said, referring to the resolution which passed 365-65.

The United Front

Chu appears to have served as AACYF’s “honorary president” alongside Chi Honghu, who is listed as an “honorary adviser” on the organization’s website, a role he has held in various forms since at least 2009, according to a DCNF translation.

However, just before joining AACYF, Chi apparently spent the previous decade or so as “director” of the China Overseas Friendship Association (COFA), according to a DCNF translation of COFA’s website and Chinese government records.

COFA was founded by the CCP’s Central Committee and the UFWD in 1997 and has been listed as a UFWD “work unit,” according to DCNF translations of archived versions of those organizations’ websites.

In 2018, the U.S.-China Economic Security and Review Commission (USCC) identified the group as a UFWD intelligence operation, referring to it as “the UFWD China Overseas Friendship Association.”

After Rep. Chu’s colleague, Chi, joined AACYF, he was also identified as an “adviser” for the China Overseas Exchange Association (COEA) within a series of Chinese government announcements beginning as early as 2010, according to a DCNF translation, and apparently continued to serve in this capacity until at least 2018.

Several experts on Chinese intelligence operations have identified COEA as a UFWD front group, including Clive Hamilton and Mareike Ohlberg, who characterized COEA as a “UFWD agency” in their 2020 book on Chinese intelligence, “Hidden Hand.”

Similarly, Geoff Wade, a China-focused historian at Australian National University, also identified COEA as a UFWD front.

“[COEA had] the same address as the [Overseas Chinese Affairs Office],” Wade told the DCNF, which he claims indicates that the Chinese government agency controlled COEA.

Chi and AACYF did not respond to the DCNF’s request for comment.

‘Directly Subordinate To The UFWD’

Several Chinese government announcements running from 2011 to 2018 also identified another current AACYF “honorary president,” Florence Fang, as having held various positions with COEA, according to a DCNF translation.

Fang formally served as “executive director” of COEA’s 4th Council between 2009 and 2013, the DCNF determined after reviewing Chinese government records and the Florence Fang Family Foundation’s website. The DCNF matched Fang’s Chinese name, Fang Li Bangqin, which is listed on her foundation’s website, with Chinese-language records in order to establish her various roles with COEA.

Fang has served as AACYF’s “honorary president” alongside Rep. Chu since 2012 and has held the position since at least 2006, according to a DCNF translation of an archived version of AACYF’s website. Fang’s tenure at AACYF overlapped with her time as COEA’s “executive director” between 2009 and 2013 and also overlapped with her role as COEA’s “consultant” between 2013 and 2018.

In 2019, Fang also appears to have attended COFA’s 5th Council meeting in Beijing, according to Chinese government records. At the event, Fang appears to have sat just seats away from General Secretary Xi Jinping during a group photo and applauded the communist dictator as he shook hands with other members of the alleged Chinese intelligence front group, footage from Chinese state-run media CCTV revealed.

Fang is also the “founding president” and current “honorary chairman” of the Northern California Association for the Promotion of Peaceful Reunification of China, an organization which opposes Taiwan’s independence, a DCNF translation of her foundation’s website reveals.

The 2018 USCC report identified Fang’s association as one of “33 chapters in the United States” listed on the website of the China Council for the Promotion of Peaceful Reunification (CCPPR), an organization the USCC said is “directly subordinate to the UFWD.”

Fang has fundraised for Republican Jeb Bush, as well as several California Democratic politicians including Sen. Dianne Feinstein and representatives Barbara Lee and Nancy Pelosi, the DCNF found.

Fang did not respond to the DCNF’s request for comment.

In addition to Chi and Fang, several other AACYF colleagues of Rep. Chu also belong to an alleged UFWD anti-Taiwan independence front group, the DCNF determined.

AACYF’s current “director general,” Zhu Bingfeng, as well as the organization’s “president,” Ren Xiangdong, have belonged to Chu’s organization since at least 2006, DCNF translations of AACYF’s website determined.

Yet, both Zhu and Ren apparently also hold leadership roles at the American Chinese Youth Federation for the Peaceful Reunification of China, according to DCNF translations of the websites of AACYF and the alleged UFWD front group CCPPR.

As with Fang’s anti-Taiwan independence organization, Zhu and Ren’s organization is also listed as one of the “33 chapters in the United States” that the 2018 USCC report identified as belonging to CCPPR.

Zhu and Ren did not respond immediately to the DCNF’s request for comment.

‘Thousand Talents’

AACYF has also interacted with and supported several UFWD front groups during Rep. Chu’s tenure at the non-profit, the DCNF discovered.

Just months after Chu became an “honorary president” at AACYF in October 2012, the group began advertising a recruitment drive on behalf of the “Thousand Talents Plan” in March 2013, according to an archived version of the Chinese-language website.

The Thousand Talents Plan is a Chinese government program originally designed to recruit “high-quality overseas experts” and allegedly incentivize them to transfer U.S. intellectual property to China, according to Ohio Republican Sen. Rob Portman, ranking member of the Senate Homeland Security Committee.

An archived version of the Thousand Talents Plan’s website states the program is managed by the Western Returned Scholars Association, which is a UFWD front group, according to the USCC. The Thousand Talents Plan is also a means of economic espionage, FBI Director Christopher Wray said during a 2020 event held at the Washington, D.C., Hudson Institute concerning Chinese government influence operations.

“Perhaps Representative Chu’s concerns and those of like-minded colleagues would be eased by spending more time engaging those constituents and less associating with groups linked to the United Front Work Department of the Chinese Communist Party,” Steve Yates, a former Chinese language analyst for the National Security Agency, told the DCNF.

All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

AUTHOR

PHILIP LENCZYCKI

Daily Caller News Foundation investigative reporter, political journalist, and China watcher. Twitter: @LenczyckiPhilip

RELATED ARTICLE: US Media Outlet Has Extensive Partnerships, Financial Dealings With Orgs Tied To Chinese Communist Party Influence Operations

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EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Caller column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved. All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

Dems Run for the Exits as the Number of Mishandled Documents Multiplies

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As the scandal over Joe Biden’s classified documents widens, Democrats may finally be jumping ship. After weeks of holding their fire, party leaders showed the first signs of turning on the president after Friday’s revelations that a fifth batch of documents had been found at the Bidens’ Delaware home. In a string of interviews across the Sunday shows, the White House’s support seemed to crumble, as one Democrat after another blasted the president for his carelessness.

Biden should be “embarrassed by the situation,” the Senate’s second-highest ranking Democrat told CNN. “There’s a standard we follow when it comes to members of Congress and classified information,” Dick Durbin (Ill.) said on “State of the Union.” “To think that any of them ended up in boxes in storage one place or the other is just unacceptable.”

Senator Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), who, like many Americans, was stunned to hear the president say he had “no regrets” about the revelations, argued that Biden “should have a lot of regrets. …[I]t’s irresponsible.” But it’s more than just “irresponsible,” the House’s new Oversight and Accountability Chair James Comer (R-Ky.) explained on Fox News. It’s “downright scary.”

Some of the files, which attorneys say date back to his time in the U.S. Senate, raised serious questions from current senators like Ted Cruz (R-Texas). “How on earth did he do that?” Cruz asked. “I’ve served in the Senate for 10 years. EVERY single classified doc I’ve read — 100% — have been in a secure SCIF in the basement of the Capitol.”

Meanwhile, the White House’s strategy seems to be projecting Biden as the picture of cooperation — a strategy that former prosecutor Andrew McCarthy says is nothing but a phony façade. “To try to stave off this chain of political disasters, Biden has decided to pose as a dedicated public servant who cooperates unfailingly with law enforcement because he has nothing to hide. Don’t fall for it,” McCarthy argues. “Team Biden has been playing games for two months. And clearly the president not only has things to hide; he has been hiding some of them for over 15 years.”

“A guy who has nothing to hide does not retain high-priced lawyers to pack up his private office,” McCarthy went on. “… Having lawyers pack up is the kind of thing you do when you’re a Democratic president who raked in millions of dollars from operatives of foreign governments, and when Republicans are about to take control of the House — and use its subpoena power to investigate.”

At the end of the day, McCarthy insists, “The president did not consent to an FBI search of his home because he is unconcerned. He consented to it because he knew law enforcement had more than sufficient evidence to compel a search of his home. From his standpoint, with his 2024 reelection hopes now teetering, it was better to pose as a cooperative volunteer than be forced to open his door to federal agents brandishing a judicial warrant.”

For now, Team Biden seems to be using the same game plan with Comer’s House investigation, which the president’s team promises to accommodate. In a letter to the Kentucky legislator, the White House says it will comply with “legitimate oversight interests within the Committee’s jurisdiction,” warning that it must also respect “the separation of powers and the constitutional and statutory obligations of the Executive Branch generally…” Still, White House Counsel Stuart Delery wrote, “We look forward to engaging in good faith with you and your staff regarding your requests.”

Comer will believe it when he sees it. On “Washington Watch” Friday, the chair told Family Research Council President Tony Perkins, “I could make a strong argument that the Biden administration is the least transparent administration in history. And the way they’ve started off in the first two weeks of my tenure as chairman of the House Oversight Committee, which is supposed to be a check and balance on the administration, I can tell you — I don’t see it getting any better anytime soon.”

The appointment of a special counsel has Comer’s antenna up. “I’ve always been critical of the special counsel process. This is something that I don’t believe has ever proven its worth. …[M]y fear is when they appointed a special counsel for Joe Biden’s mishandling of classified documents, that they would try to use that as a shield for saying, ‘Well, we would work with you, and we would give you the information … but we can’t because the special counsel is investigating it.’”

The irony, Comer said, is that he always felt there would be a special counsel, “but I [thought] it would be over Hunter Biden’s shenanigans and not Joe Biden’s mishandling of classified documents.”

Now the two seem disturbingly linked.

A lot of the concern with these discoveries, Comer explained, are the national security implications. As far back as a year ago, Republicans tried to dig deeper into the connection between China and the Biden Center for Diplomacy at the University of Pennsylvania. “… I don’t think any of the press ever picked up on it,” he said. “We knew that the University of Pennsylvania was receiving more money from China than any other university in America, and we knew that Pennsylvania was funding the Biden Center for Diplomacy. So you could say that the Biden Center for Diplomacy was being funded by China. … We want to know who those anonymous sources were, because is China just giving money to the University of Pennsylvania because they like the job they’re doing. Or are they trying to get a return on their investment?”

That matters, Comer went on, because “when you find out that there are classified documents there — where potential Chinese Communist Party members are going in and out of. Then it’s a concern when you find out that Hunter Biden, who’s a national security risk, and Joe Biden’s brothers who have influence-peddled for two decades, are going in and out of a house where documents are just sitting in a garage. Then it’s a concern. So we are investigating Biden to determine whether or not this administration is compromised, because it makes no sense of all the money they’ve received from China.”

It’s a big job for the new majority — especially considering the other crises that deserve Comer’s attention — but he says Republicans are up to the task. “I have 25 other members of the House Oversight Committee. I would argue that they’re some of the top members of our entire conference. They’re aggressive. They work hard. … I believe that we’ve got plenty of places to start our investigation, and we’re going to go wherever the information leads us.”

AUTHOR

Suzanne Bowdey

Suzanne Bowdey serves as editorial director and senior writer at The Washington Stand.

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U.S. Media Outlet Has Extensive Partnerships, Financial Dealings With Orgs Tied To Chinese Communist Party Influence Operations

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  • Approximately 20 organizations that may be headed by members of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) or members of alleged Chinese influence operations have sponsored or partnered with The China Project (TCP), a China-focused New York media outlet, the Daily Caller News Foundation determined.
  • TCP recently denied working for or with the CCP after a former employee sent an Oct. 21 declaration to the Department of Justice and Congress accusing the outlet of harboring a pro-CCP bias. 
  • “We must help defend our fellow citizens and lawful permanent residents from pressure — and in many cases, transnational repression up to and including assassination attempts — by the Chinese Communist Party,” New Jersey Republican Rep. Chris Smith told the DCNF.

The China Project (TCP), a New York-based media outlet renowned for its China reporting, has had professional and financial ties with organizations that may have been headed by members of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) or members of alleged Chinese influence operations, a Daily Caller News Foundation investigation found.

Over 20 organizations that may have been led by such individuals have apparently partnered with or financially sponsored TCP, including the China-United States Exchange Foundation (CUSEF) and the Confucius Institute, the DCNF found. Both groups apparently began professional relationships with TCP after the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission (USCC) identified them as CCP influence operations in 2018. Furthermore, the DCNF found that TCP’s “board director,” Clarence Kwan, may have been simultaneously serving as a director of an alleged CCP front group at the time he joined TCP’s board and provided initial equity in the company.

Kwan did not respond to the DCNF’s request for comment.

These revelations come over a month after journalist Shannon Van Sant, a former TCP business editor, delivered a sworn declaration to Congress and the Department of Justice (DOJ) on Oct. 21, alleging TCP fired her in June 2020 for being out of “alignment” with the organization’s alleged pro-CCP bias.

Van Sant’s declaration also stated that after being fired she “conducted open source research and found links between the organization and China’s Communist Party,” however, Van Sant’s declaration did not provide any documentation to substantiate her claim.

“It is important to me to provide transparency and shed light on my experiences,” Van Sant’s declaration stated. “That is why I am doing this disclosure.”

Florida Republican Sen. Marco Rubio and New Jersey Republican Rep. Chris Smith — both of whom sit on the Congressional-Executive Commission on China — recently told Semafor that TCP “should be forced to register” under the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA), which requires the disclosure of service to foreign entities.

In response, TCP’s attorneys at Boies Schiller Flexner sent a 12-page letter to Semafor on Oct. 31, demanding Semafor retract their piece on Van Sant’s allegations. TCP’s attorneys allege Van Sant had been fired for “poor work performance” and had “an axe to grind.”

“Nothing in Ms. Van Sant’s ‘sworn declaration’ comes close to providing evidence, direct or circumstantial, that TCP is working for or has worked for the Chinese government,” Boies Schiller Flexner wrote to Semafor.

Neither TCP nor their attorneys at Boies Schiller Flexner responded to multiple requests for comment from the DCNF. Van Sant declined the DCNF’s request for comment through her representatives at Whistleblower Aid.

‘A Jewel In The Crown Of China Reporting’

TCP — which until September was known as “SupChina” — is a multimedia group that claims to reach “more than two million people per month” through a variety of platforms including news articles and podcasts. Former Ambassador to China Max Baucus — who recently came under fire for Nov. 11 and 12 meetings with alleged Chinese influence operatives — called TCP “a jewel in the crown of China reporting,” according to the outlet’s website.

The multimedia outlet also runs a nonprofit arm, Serica, which seeks “to educate and cultivate empathy around the issues of Sinophobia and anti-Asian hate,” according to its website. TCP also maintains a “United States Sinophobia Tracker” that’s collected numerous articles on CCP espionage allegations, such as a 2020 NBC News piece about the growing number of FBI counterintelligence cases, which TCP tags on its website as “paranoid rhetoric.”

TCP has also published articles and podcasts critical of the DOJ’s China Initiative — an anti-espionage program launched during the Trump administration which was ultimately terminated in February 2022 after the “civil rights community” expressed concern that the program had “fueled a narrative of intolerance and bias,” Assistant Attorney General Matthew Olsen said at the time.

China’s United Front

In her declaration to the federal government, Van Sant claims to have discovered links between TCP and the China Overseas Exchange Association (COEA), an organization which billed itself as an “important platform and bridge for people-to-people exchanges,” according to an archived version of COEA’s website.

China intelligence analyst and former senior analyst at the Canberra-based Australian Strategic Policy Institute Alex Joske identified COEA as a “key” United Front Work Department (UFWD) front group that merged with the China Overseas Friendship Association (COFA) in 2019 — an organization which USCC also identified as a UFWD front group.

Joske is the author of “Spies and Lies: How China’s Greatest Covert Operations Fooled the World” published in October 2022, which was well-received by the international press.

The UFWD is a Chinese government agency, which oversees CCP influence operations and reports directly to the CCP’s Central Committee, according to USCC. General Secretary Xi Jinping has repeatedly emphasized the importance of the UFWD. He even described the agency as the CCP’s “magic weapon” for “realizing the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation” in a 2015 speech.

“The UFWD is essentially an intelligence agency of the CCP tasked with infiltrating different communities and organizations, co-opting and influencing them,” Salih Hudayar, Uyghur prime minister of the East Turkistan Government in Exile, told the DCNF.

While TCP’s attorneys conceded in their October letter to Semafor that Kwan formerly served as a COEA “director,” they claim his involvement with the group “was limited to participating in two trips to China in 2013 and 2014.” TCP’s attorneys also claimed Kwan’s COEA tenure preceded his joining TCP’s board and his providing nearly 2% of the outlet’s initial equity.

Yet, the DCNF discovered that archived versions of COEA’s website — which was deleted after the organization merged with COFA around 2019 — list Kwan as a “director” for two consecutive four-year terms running from 2013-2017 and 2017-2021. This appears to indicate that Kwan’s time at COEA overlapped with his $150,000 purchase of SupChina First Notes in September 2016, according to Security and Exchange Commission filings. Likewise, this indicates Kwan may have been serving as COEA’s director when he assumed the role of “director” of SupChina — now called TCP — in May 2017.

Kwan is currently listed as an “advisory board member” on TCP’s website.

Additionally, Kwan appears to have also held leadership positions in several companies that have financially sponsored TCP, including KCY Family Office, East West Bank and Piermont Bank, the DCNF found.

The Committee Of 100

TCP also appears to have partnered with, and donated $25,000 to, a New York-based organization called the Committee of 100 (C100) — a nonprofit that claims to seek “constructive dialogue and relationships between the peoples of the United States and Greater China.”

Yet, C100 members appear to have included Chinese government advisers and 10 COEA directors, including Kwan, who, based on the committee’s website, may have served as C100’s chairman while simultaneously serving as COEA’s director.

Moreover, in addition to TCP’s founder, Anla Cheng — a hedge fund manager by trade, who apparently is also a trustee and former C100 director — seven of TCP’s 23 advisory board members appear to belong to C100, including John Long, S. Alice Mong, Frank Wu, Li Cheng, Ted Wang, Janet Yang and Lesley Ma.

TCP’s attorneys accused Semafor’s article of relying on “racial profiling and stereotypes” by citing a C100 report which claimed “Asian defendants are more than twice as likely to be falsely accused of espionage” without acknowledging any financial or personnel ties between the two organizations.

C100 did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

‘CCP Agents Often Target The Chinese Diaspora’

Van Sant also claims in her 11-page declaration that the China Association for Science and Technology (CAST) told TCP’s founder, Cheng, in June 2020 about a Chinese scientist whom the U.S. government had charged with espionage, prompting Cheng to direct staff to “protect him.”

CAST is a unit of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), which oversees the UFWD, according to USCC. The CPPCC “operates as a way for the CCP to falsely claim that it represents the full breadth of Chinese society,” according to a 2020 report written by Joske, the intel analyst.

“In practice, those organizations are controlled by the CCP,” Joske wrote. “Their leaders are often party members, and, historically, some have been manipulated through inducement and coercion, including blackmail.”

Although TCP’s attorneys did not deny Van Sant’s allegation in their letter to Semafor, they claimed that “protecting a ‘wrongly investigated’ Chinese scientist” did not amount to “evidence of espionage.”

Yet, TCP listed CAST as a “partner organization” on flyers from a 2022 “Women’s Conference,” the DCNF found.

Furthermore, TCP appears to have partnered with around 10 organizations that may be led by members of the CCP or alleged UFWD fronts, the DCNF found. For example, the “About Us” tab on CAST’s website includes a section on “Leading Party Members” and features CAST’s Party Secretary Zhang Yuzhuo and five other Communist Party members.

Likewise, TCP partnered with another organization called NYO China for its 2019 “Women’s Conference.” NYO China appears to be headed by He Mei, vice chairman of the Center for China and Globalization (CCG), which was identified by USCC as a UFWD front back in 2018.

The year before the State Department designated the Confucius Institute as a UFWD “foreign mission” in 2020, TCP also partnered with the Chinese government-run propaganda center to host an event on “China’s Food Revolution.” Li Changchun, former CCP propaganda chief, once called Confucius Institutes “an important part of China’s overseas propaganda setup,” according to the State Department.

“Confucius Institutes are the United Front’s most well-known overseas outreach program,” Helen Raleigh, author of “Backlash: How China’s Aggression Has Backfired,” told the DCNF.

“Confucius Institutes have been noted to present students with only the CCP-sanctioned version of Chinese history, which omits the CCP’s human rights violations, and Chinese teachers at Confucius Institutes are all thoroughly vetted by Beijing,” Raleigh said.

In total, about 10 organizations that appear to have been headed by CCP members or alleged UFWD front members financially sponsored TCP, the DCNF determined. These organizations paid as much as $50,000 to sponsor events hosted by the multimedia outlet, according to various flyers.

Youhe Invest — whose website identifies its chairman Su Jie as a member of the CCP and CPPCC — is listed on TCP’s website as a sponsor of past events. Likewise, the China-United States Exchange Foundation (CUSEF) sponsored a TCP screening of a documentary on “the history and evolution of Afro-Chinese relations in America” in 2021.

CUSEF is a Hong Kong-based nonprofit registered under the Foreign Agents Registration Act that is involved in UFWD “influence operations,” according to USCC.

Several companies run by individuals from CUSEF’s leadership have also sponsored TCP, such as Wisdom Valley — whose founding director, Victor Fung, is listed as CUSEF’s vice chairman — and Value Partners — whose co-chairman, Cheah Cheng Hye, is one of CUSEF’s “counsellors.”

Rep. Smith told the DCNF that once Republicans take control of the House it will become a priority to investigate Chinese influence operations.

“Beyond national security concerns, we know that CCP agents often target the Chinese diaspora in the United States,” Smith said. “We must help defend our fellow citizens and lawful permanent residents from pressure — and in many cases, transnational repression up to and including assassination attempts — by the Chinese Communist Party.”

AUTHOR

PHILIP LENCZYCKI

Investigative reporter.

RELATED ARTICLE: EXCLUSIVE: CIA Director’s Former Think Tank Hired Experts From Nonprofits Controlled By Chinese Spy Agencies

EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Caller column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved. All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

Apple Crushes Dissent in America and China

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Suppressing protests in China and censoring Twitter in America.

The largest lockdown uprising in China took place at facilities run by Apple’s Foxconn supplier where workers had previously jumped to their deaths. After thousands fled the Apple gulag, making their way through the woods and rural areas to freedom, other employees battled with Communist authorities over abusive conditions and treatment in the iGulag.

Apple had nothing to say about the rights of those workers who thought differently enough to break free and fight back. If they were foolish enough to have iPhones, there’s little doubt the company would have eagerly helped authorities track them down to be imprisoned or killed.

“Think Different”, Apple’s slogan, actually means collaborating with a Communist dictatorship where thinking differently is a crime. And it also means suppressing free speech in America.

That’s why Apple is threatening free speech on Twitter just as it’s threatening it in Shanghai.

But that is what the company has always been behind the reality distortion field of its ads. “Think Different” has never meant anything other than, “Shut up and do what the visionaries tell you.”

In the 90s, to celebrate the return of its co-founder, Apple launched an ad campaign with the slogan, “Think Different.”  The campaign with its images of Einstein, MLK, Lennon, Edison and Picasso was meant to suggest that Apple was a unique creative company for aspiring geniuses.

And soon Steve Jobs joined the pantheon of those geniuses. But behind the ad campaign meant to appeal to narcissistic hipsters with disposable incomes was a harder truth.

Jobs, the talented marketer who had positioned Apple as the company fighting totalitarianism with its 1984 ad, was aggressively offshoring the company’s labor to Communist China.

What China had to offer was mass production under a ruthlessly totalitarian system that would, when Jobs decided to revamp the iPhone a month before launch, wake up 8,000 workers at midnight for a 12 hour shift.

At an Obama dinner, Jobs bluntly confirmed, “Those jobs aren’t coming back.”

“What U.S. plant can find 3,000 people overnight and convince them to live in dorms?” Apple’s supply manager asked.

The dorms, where 12 workers live to a tiny room, everyone is monitored and so many have committed suicide that nets were put up to catch the bodies, were the real “Think Different”.

Steve Jobs loved China and the Communist dictatorship loved him back. His famous black turtleneck appeared to echo the Mao suit. There are golden busts of Jobs in China looking like a Communist dictator.When Jobs died, there was hysterical mourning in China. There was no mourning for the deaths of workers at the Foxconn plants where Apple products were made.

A year before Jobs died, fourteen men and women jumped from buildings at Apple’s Foxconn Chinese contractors. Their deaths occasioned much less interest than the outpouring of grief for the author of their misery.

In a notion that could have only come from a satirical story by Kafka and Philip K. Dick or a real life Communist dystopia, workers were forced to sign contracts promising not to kill themselves.

Afterward nets were hung up to catch the falling bodies.

Think Different.

After Jobs’ death, his widow took the money to build the Emerson Collective, pushing social justice in the fine tradition of atoning for evil with more evil, while CEO Tim Cook developed an even more incestuous relationship with Communist China that included signing a secret $275 billion pact to help Communist China develop “the most advanced manufacturing technologies” and vowed to use even more Chinese technology in Apple’s products.

When the Hong Kong protests began, the streets filled with young men and women, most of whom not only owned Apple products, but believed the hype that it was a noble company that didn’t just make gadgets, but aspired to harness human creativity for a better world.

Instead, Apple quickly moved to suppress the protests by removing an app used by the protesters to avoid police. Apple sanctimoniously declared that the protests were endangering “law enforcement and residents in Hong Kong” and claimed that it was responding to “concerned customers” worried that the popular protests threatened “public safety”.

That statement could have been and may have been written by the Communist regime. It should have been enough to finally expose the myth that Apple is animated by a creative spirit, rather than power, greed, and a willing collaboration with Communist mass murderers.

But with protests breaking out against Zero COVID tyranny breaking out in China, people were once again surprised when Apple rushed to aid Communist China’s crackdown by preventing protesters from using AirDrop to communicate and coordinate their activities.

The company wasn’t just once again collaborating with a Communist dictatorship responsible for the murder of countless millions, but it was screwing its own users, the naive students who had paid premium prices for its slave labor products because they believed in Apple.

They believed, like so many Americans and Europeans, that Apple stood for something.

And Apple does. It stands for tyranny.

That’s why Apple is threatening Twitter’s place in its app store because under Elon Musk the platform has begun to offer the very thing Apple is helping China stamp out: freedom.

It’s a mistake to believe that Apple is just doing what it’s told. That’s a fundamental misunderstanding of the company as unfortunate as the one by the protesters risking their lives while believing that Apple wouldn’t kick the chair out from under its users and their movement.

Apple isn’t a great American company, it’s a great Chinese company. Its fundamental worldview  is Maoist. Its simplicity of control isn’t just about manipulating interfaces, but people. Its ad campaigns, from ‘1984’ to ‘Think Different’, have always been regime propaganda. Jobs, unlike his genuinely talented co-founder, Steve Wozniak, held people in contempt. His vision of technology was essentially Communist: depriving people of control for their own good.

China had always understood Steve Jobs, with his Maoist turtleneck, his minimalist aesthetics, ruthlessness and conviction of his own genius, far better than we ever did. The real message of “Think Different” wasn’t that everyone ought to think differently, but that geniuses are a superior group who ought to have the unlimited power to rigorously implement their vision. That is what China offered Jobs. And what Apple offers the Communist elite is the power behind their vision.

Americans haven’t cared very much about Chinese workers hurriedly assembling smartwatches in freezing temperatures or children laboring in mines, but Apple’s tyranny doesn’t stay in China.

Apple’s vision for America isn’t any different than for China. In both countries, Apple helps a leftist elite implement its collectivist vision by offering customers a poisoned chalice of convenience in exchange for data harvesting and control. The company doesn’t empower its customers, it tricks them into giving up control so that they can be better controlled.

That is why it’s coming for Twitter and threatening it over its newfound free speech.

“We have created, for the first time in all history, a garden of pure ideology,” a Big Brother analogue intoned in Apple’s famous 1984 commercial, “secure from the pests purveying contradictory thoughts.”

Jobs was a fan of Orwell’s book. Unfortunately he viewed it as a manual.

Apple has used its illegal app store monopoly to create a walled garden of apps along a pure ideology, secure from contradictory thoughts. Now, much as China is purging political opposition, the company that helped define its new age, is doing the same thing here.

Jobs, who once claimed that PCs were totalitarian and Apple was “the only force that can ensure their future freedom” helped build an oppressive operating system tethered to an app store calculated to deprive users of their freedom. That integrated hardware and software monopoly is one of the great threats to freedom in America and China.

As we approach a 2024 election, more legislators are waking up and fighting back against Apple’s walled app store of ideology. And if the Communist collaborating company comes after Twitter, it may discover that the whirling sledgehammer from its 1984 ad is coming its way.

AUTHOR

DANIEL GREENFIELD

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EDITORS NOTE: This Jihad Watch column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

Chinese Operatives Ran A Massive TikTok Campaign To Help Dems In The Midterm Elections

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  • TikTok accounts operating on behalf of Chinese state media published content that criticized Republicans and favored Democrats ahead of the 2022 U.S. midterm elections, a Forbes investigation found.
  • Despite TikTok rules requiring accounts to disclose their government ties, at least three Chinese government-affiliated accounts with millions of views did not clearly describe their status to users.
  • “This opens a new dimension for conversation about TikTok,” Conor Healy, director of government research at surveillance research group IPVM, told the Daily Caller News Foundation.

TikTok accounts operating as voices of Chinese state media promoted messages that appeared to denigrate Republican candidates and favor Democratic ones ahead of the 2022 midterm elections, according to a Forbes investigation.

While the Chinese-owned social media app has verbally affirmed the need to crack down on election disinformation and foreign interference, several news-oriented accounts failed to disclose their affiliation with Chinese Communist Party (CCP) state-owned media on the platform, Forbes found. The accounts racked up tens of millions views on posts that covered divisive topics, such as abortion and race, as well as critical clips that mostly targeted Republican candidates ahead of the 2022 midterms.

“This opens a new dimension for conversation about TikTok,” Conor Healy, director of government research at surveillance research group IPVM, told the Daily Caller News Foundation.

The accounts are managed by MediaLinks TV, which registered as a foreign agent for China with the Treasury Department in 2019 and distributes the U.S. branch of China Central Television (CCTV), CGTN, according to the company’s LinkedIn page. MediaLinks also operates the CCTV and CGTN apps, according to Apple.

The largest accounts are @Panadorama, @The…Optimist and @NewsTokss, the latter of which expressly covers U.S. national news, according to Forbes.

NewsTokss in particular ran content that overall shone Republican politicians in an unfavorable light and praised Democrats, Forbes found.

A video from July was introduced with the caption “Cruz, Abbott Don’t Care About Us,” referring to Republican Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas and the state’s governor, Greg Abbott, according to Forbes. Another from October criticized Republican Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida for having “Done Absolutely Nothing.”

Some content swayed against Democrats; one NewsTokss video in October asked viewers whether President Joe Biden’s promise to enshrine abortion rights served as a “political manipulation tactic,” Forbes found.

None of the videos clearly disclosed their ties to CGTN or the Chinese government, but the accounts’ profile bios did spell out, “Material distributed by MediaLinks TV LLC on behalf of CCTV. More info at DOJ, D.C.,” Forbes reported.

“That’s not disclosure,” Healy said. Between May 8 and July 6, NewsTokss received 8.3 million views but only 57,600 profile views, suggesting many users who watched the videos may not have realized a foreign government was pushing the content, Forbes reported.

Further, by redirecting users to the Department of Justice (DOJ), MediaLinks shrouded its status as a foreign agent.

However, such high-profile accounts should be easily identifiable as state-run, Healy argued to the DCNF.

“Either they don’t care and don’t have the protocols in place to deal with this, or they’re letting it happen,” he said.

In September, TikTok announced a new pilot policy of “mandatory verification for accounts belonging to governments, politicians, and political parties through the midterm elections” in November.

“We plan to introduce our state-controlled media policy and corresponding labels globally next year as part of our continued focus on media literacy,” a spokesperson for TikTok told Forbes.

Chinese company ByteDance owns TikTok, causing suspicion that the company takes orders or signals from the CCP and prompting politicians to call for banning the app across the federal government.

Technology and China researchers have long expressed concerns about China’s election interference via social media content; cybersecurity firm Recorded Future warned ahead of the 2018 midterm elections found Chinese-run accounts “disseminating breaking news and biased content surrounding President Trump and China-related issues.”

CGTN did not immediately respond to the DCNF’s request for comment.

AUTHOR

MICAELA BURROW

Reporter.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Caller column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved. All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

CIA Director’s Former Think Tank Introduced Congressional Staffers To Experts Who Worked For Chinese Spy Fronts

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  • The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace introduced congressional staffers to at least 10 individuals who worked for Chinese intelligence front groups during a 2019 sponsored trip to China while current CIA Director William Burns was the nonprofit’s president, the Daily Caller News Foundation determined after reviewing author Alex Joske’s book, “Spies and Lies.”
  • Since at least the 1980s, Chinese spies have impersonated scholars aiming to influence U.S. nonprofits and policymakers, Joske found.
  • “A lot of the key scholars and other figures involved in U.S.-China relations on the Chinese side have these sorts of relationships,” Joske told the DCNF.

The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace introduced congressional staffers to at least 10 individuals who worked for Chinese intelligence front groups during a 2019 trip to China while current CIA Director William Burns served as the nonprofit’s president, a Daily Caller News Foundation investigation found.

During the week-long, all-expenses-paid trip to Beijing, a bipartisan group of congressional staffers from the offices of various representatives — including Connecticut Democratic Rep. Jim Himes and former North Carolina Republican Rep. Mark Meadows — met with Chinese government officials, journalists, academics and policy experts, according to the trip’s itinerary. Yet, at least 10 of the Chinese individuals worked for front groups controlled by Chinese spy agencies, such as the Ministry of State Security (MSS), the International Liaison Department (ILD) and the intel arm of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), the DCNF determined.

The congressional staffers participated in a number of discussions with undisclosed Chinese intelligence front group members, such as a Nov. 6 “pre-dinner dialogue” concerning “Chinese perspectives on U.S.-China policy challenges,” which included Ding Yifan, a member of the MSS-controlled Institute of World Development Studies.

PLA’s Second Intelligence Department carries out military intelligence operations, while the ILD focuses on political intelligence and the MSS serves as China’s equivalent of the CIA, according to the Defense Intelligence Agency.

The DCNF was able to identify some of the individuals who participated in Carnegie’s 2019 trip as being tied to Chinese intelligence agency front groups by cross-referencing the itinerary with the research of several prominent Chinese intelligence specialists, including former CIA analyst Peter Mattis and Alex Joske, a former analyst at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute.

Joske’s new book, “Spies and Lies,” details how, since the 1980s, Chinese intelligence operatives co-opted or established various nonprofits and impersonated scholars with the goal of luring prominent Western think tanks, such as Carnegie, into partnerships in order to influence U.S. government policies towards the communist nation.

Carnegie’s cooperation with Chinese intelligence front groups dates back to at least 2004, when, under the leadership of former think tank president Jessica Mathews, the nonprofit launched a joint program with the MSS-controlled China Reform Forum, according to Joske’s research. More than a decade later, Carnegie co-hosted the 2019 congressional staffer trip, which occurred while current CIA Director William Burns served as the think tank’s president.

“A lot of the key scholars and other figures involved in U.S.-China relations on the Chinese side have these sorts of relationships,” Joske told the DCNF.

The six day trip, which was co-hosted by Carnegie and the Aspen Institute, became a flashpoint during Burns’ 2021 confirmation hearings. Florida Republican Sen. Marco Rubio pressed Burns about Carnegie’s ties to a Chinese government-backed group as well as the all-expenses-paid trip that brought 11 congressional staffers to Beijing in 2019.

Burns told Rubio the trip was meant “to provide congressional staff members with an opportunity to engage directly with Chinese counterparts and to express their concerns about Chinese actions and malign behavior quite directly.”

However, the DCNF previously reported congressional staffers were also introduced to the president of a CCP-affiliated front group called the Chinese People’s Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries (CPAFFC). In 2020, the U.S. State Department designated CPAFFC as a foreign mission seeking to “malignly” influence American leaders.

Additionally, the DCNF has identified at least 10 individuals listed on the trip’s itinerary who worked for nonprofits controlled by Chinese intelligence agencies. At least three of these individuals were simultaneously working for Chinese intelligence front groups while employed by Carnegie, the DCNF found. Another two Carnegie policy experts who participated in the trip formerly worked for Chinese intelligence fronts.

During the trip, congressional staffers visited Carnegie’s center at Tsinghua University, where they encountered at least three experts who’d worked for intelligence front groups, the DCNF determined.

One of these experts who participated in the visit was Li Bin, a Carnegie nuclear policy fellow, who spoke to congressional staffers about North Korea’s “nuclear threat.” Li Bin is a member of the CCP and a PLA intelligence front group, the China Foundation for International and Strategic Studies (CFISS), according to the group’s website.

A second individual, Cheng Xiaohe, who Carnegie employed as an international relations expert, had previously worked for the MSS front group, the China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations (CICIR), by Carnegie’s own admission.

The third individual, Yang Wenjing, worked as the chief of U.S. policy at CICIR. While Carnegie did not employ Yang Wejing, Carnegie had featured her as a speaker during events in 2017 and 2018 and continued to feature her at events afterwards.

Similarly, at another point during the trip, Carnegie introduced staffers to Carnegie-Tsinghua advisory council member, Wang Jisi, who is also a CCP member, for a “roundtable discussion.”

Wang has a “very close relationship with the Ministry of State Security,” Joske told the DCNF. Wang has since 2000 also served as director of the China Reform Forum, which Joske’s book identifies as an MSS-controlled front group.

Wang has also worked for at least four other intelligence fronts, including the China International Cultural Exchange Center (CICEC) and another MSS front called the China Institute of Strategy and Management (CISM), the DCNF found.

Carnegie, Burns, Wang and the CIA did not respond to the DCNF’s request for comment.

With Republicans preparing to take control of the House, lawmakers are once again scrutinizing Burns’ time at Carnegie and the group’s deep and enduring relationships with Chinese academics, policy experts and government officials.

“The amount of CCP infiltration at Carnegie shows that Director Burns was aware and intentionally concealed it from the American people, or he was grossly incompetent,” Texas Republican Rep. Lance Gooden told the DCNF in September. “Anyone who enables our top adversary is not fit to lead a U.S. intelligence agency.”

AUTHOR

PHILIP LENCZYCKI

Daily Caller News Foundation investigative reporter, political journalist, and China watcher. Twitter: @LenczyckiPhilip

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2021 was one of the worst years ever for religious freedom in China

EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Caller column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved. All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

CEO Allegedly Conspired To Store California Election Workers’ Data In China

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Eugene Yu, whom police arrested last week for alleged data theft, allegedly conspired to store California election workers’ personal data in China during the 2020 presidential election, prosecutors said in a court filing Thursday.

Yu’s firm, Konnech, entered a contract with Los Angeles County to provide secure poll worker management software for the 2020 election that stipulated all employee payroll and scheduling data collected by the company should be stored in the U.S., according to the Los Angeles District Attorney’s office. Despite multiple statements to The New York Times denying Yu or Konnech stored data in China, new court filings indicate that Yu deliberately collaborated with unknown conspirators to transfer the personal information of hundreds of Los Angeles election workers through third party contractors based in China.

Luis Nabergoi, Konnech’s project manager for the Los Angeles operation, sent a memo via Chinese messaging app DingTalk around Aug. 18 confirming Chinese contractors exercised so-called “superadministration” privileges for all clients of Konnech’s PollChief software, the court documents state. Nabergoi called the situation a “huge security issue.”

The Chinese company with whom Konnech contracted was responsible for developing troubleshooting software, according to the NYT.

On Oct. 4, Nabergoi sent an internal email informing Konnech employees the company was “moving t0 a new stage in the company maturity and we need to ensure the security, privacy and confidentiality or [sic] our client data,” the court documents state.

The documents also included allegations the company embezzled at least $2,645,000 by violating the company’s contract with Los Angeles County.

Authorities arrested Yu in Michigan on Oct. 5 following initial allegations that Konnech stored the personal information of Los Angeles election workers in servers located in China, extraditing him to California afterward.

“Data breaches are an ongoing threat to our digital way of life. When we entrust a company to hold our confidential data, they must be willing and able to protect our personal identifying information from theft,” District Attorney George Gascón said in a statement.

Gascón said the event could constitute a “cyber intrusion” in U.S. elections.

None of the data appeared to have been sold, according to the Los Angeles Times. However, intelligence services operating on behalf of Beijing could obtain access to information from private companies housed in Chinese servers, according to a 2020 Foreign Policy report.

None of Konnech’s actions had an effect on vote counting or altered election results, according to the L.A. District Attorney’s office.

True The Vote, a election integrity organization, previously reported concerns about Yu and Konnech to the FBI in 2021 after claiming their researchers had accessed Konnech data from servers in China, according to the NYT. Los Angeles County authorities began investigating Konnech after receiving a tip from Gregg Phillips, a True The Vote associate.

After Yu’s arrest, Konnech distributed a letter to clients claiming the company “never hosted your data or system in servers outside of the United States,” the NYT reported.

The district attorney declined to say whether other individuals were under investigation, the NYT reported.

Konnech did not immediately respond to the DCNF’s request for comment.

AUTHOR

MICAELA BURROW

Reporter.

RELATED ARTICEL: Michigan Announces $715 Million Contract With Chinese Communist Party-Affiliated Company

EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Caller column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved. Content created by The Daily Caller News Foundation is available without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a large audience. For licensing opportunities of our original content, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

Afghanistan: Taliban Eyes Future in China and Russia

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Al Jazeera reports about a “non-Western approach” being pursued by the Taliban. The global shift brought about by American weakness should be a primary concern of the Western media, but of course it isn’t. Only the woke agenda is prioritized in news cycles, hastening America’s trend toward economic and cultural destruction.

America has already handed over $7,000,000,000 dollars of military equipment to the Taliban, but the worst is yet to come if trends in the great global realignment are to continue. The Taliban, which has created the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (IEA), is doing what it needs to do for its survival and long-term goals. The Taliban, along with China, Russia, and Iran, all seek to survive and expand, while America under Joe Biden and his woke supporters are working to destroy America’s free society from within.

The International Energy Agency has reported an economic windfall for Russia since its invasion of Ukraine, noting that Russia’s oil revenue jumped to $20,000,000,000 in May alone. Russia has also been building a massive new pipeline with China. And it is expanding the International North-South Transport Corridor (INSTC) — “a 7,200-kilometre (4,474-mile) network of railroads, highways and maritime routes that connects Russia and India through Iran.” Allying with Russia and China would be a further boon for the Taliban.

The worst enemies of America are realigning to strengthen their economies, while Joe Biden compounds his failures and “progressives” remain fixated on transgender issues and how to sink Donald Trump. The headlines are now saturated with anything and everything Democrats and their Left-leaning mainstream media cronies can conjure up to try to justify the Mar-a-Lago raid, which was obviously meant to stymie Trump’s 2024 efforts and divert attention away from Biden’s gross failures. The raid was little more than an extension of the Russian Collusion scam against Trump.

America will suffer further economically, and continue to lose more freedom, as will the EU and UK under the weight of the Red-Green axis about which Jihad Watch and others have been warning for years.

As West puts Taliban on hold, Kabul eyes future in China, Russia

by Giorgio Cafiero, Al Jazeera, August 15, 2022:

Monday marks a year since the Taliban took control of Afghanistan after almost 20 years of US occupation.

But the Taliban rulers have much work left to do as they struggle to revive the country’s lifeless economy and address the dire humanitarian situation.

Meanwhile, the Taliban’s international isolation has not helped its cause.

Despite repeated appeals and efforts by Taliban leaders, no country in the world has recognised the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (IEA), as the country is officially known under Taliban rule.

The West has demanded that the Taliban ease curbs on women’s rights and make the government more representative as a condition for recognition. The Taliban says the United States is violating the 2020 Doha Agreement by not recognising its government………

Non-Western countries’ approach

It is important to examine how non-Western countries approach the Taliban government. Several of Afghanistan’s neighbours, including China, Pakistan, and Iran, have accepted Taliban diplomats, along with Malaysia, Qatar (which hosts the Taliban office in Doha), Saudi Arabia, Russia, and Turkmenistan. In fact, Ashgabat, Beijing, Islamabad, and Moscow have even formally accredited Taliban-appointed diplomats, underscoring how the Taliban’s international isolation is relative….

AUTHOR

CHRISTINE DOUGLASS-WILLIAMS

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New Museum Bears Witness to Communism’s Horrors, Honors Its Victims

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In total, more than 100 million have been killed under communist regimes in the past 100 years.

In the heart of Washington, D.C., behind the doors of a building not unlike the others with which it shares a block, lies a most visceral testament to the horrors of communism—a political ideology still all too dominant in the world today.

The new museum, from the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation, has been in the works for many years. It opened to the public on Monday.

Entering it is like walking into a vault. Or possibly a tomb. Passing by a wall with large, embossed words reading, “REMEMBERING the victims of Communism,” the space quickly darkens and narrows.

Pictures and small video screens containing images of regimes and victims alike emblazon it, evoking a somber tone. Beyond those images, on a larger screen, a six-minute film lays out the rise of Vladimir Lenin and the Soviet Union as a communist power.

The room then funnels visitors into the world of the gulag. Here, there are artifacts from the notorious Soviet prison camps, physical remnants of the millions of Russians who passed through them. In one case sits a teddy bear and next to it a “valenki”—a felt boot that shod gulag prisoners.

There’s also a replica of “black bread,” an oblong, charcoal-colored loaf that gulag prisoners relied on for sustenance. Small measurements show how much of a loaf would be doled out as rations to each prisoner, depending on their docility or misbehavior.

From 1934 to 1947, an estimated 10 million were sent to the camps. Another estimate puts fatalities between 1.2 million and 1.7 million from 1918 to 1956.

An informational panel explains how Josef Stalin, the longest reigning leader of the Soviet Union, intentionally used a famine to starve more than 3 million Ukrainians in 1932 and 1933. Some estimate the death toll reached 7 million.

In total, the museum estimates, more than 100 million have been killed under communist regimes in the past 100 years.

On one wall runs a film, a slideshow of simple, hand-drawn images depicting the hardship of life in gulags, prisons, and work camps from communist regimes around the world. The images were etched by the survivors. Testimonies of what other survivors witnessed while imprisoned are read aloud as the images scroll.

“Every case where [communism] has been tried, it leads to mass atrocities,” Ambassador Andrew Bremberg, the president and CEO of the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation, told me. “Truly, the worst examples of human suffering in history in terms of the most brutal, mass-murdering regimes.”

A broader scope of the suffering is played out in the museum’s largest space. There, a film animates the history of communism’s spread across the globe, detailing which nations fell to it. In one corner, the number of fatalities under communism, as well as those subjugated by it, rolls ever upward.

Informational panels throughout the museum detail specific atrocities, such as Pol Pot’s genocide of the Cambodian people, which wiped out 25% of the population of the Southeast Asian nation, and Mao Zedong’s failure in collectivizing China’s agriculture, resulting in a famine that killed anywhere from 20 million to 43 million people.

Juxtaposed to those are stories—written out and accompanied by photographs—of resistance to communism, ranging from peaceful demonstrations to armed uprisings: the Hungarian Revolution of 1956, the Prague Spring of 1968, and the Tiananmen Square massacre of 1989 in Beijing, to name a few.

Bremberg said that the former two examples, while lesser known, are of equal importance to Tiananmen Square.

He also cited a statistic woven throughout the museum: 1.5 billion. That’s the estimated number of people still living under communism. The largest communist nation today is China, accounting for the vast majority of that number.

The Chinese Communist Party, which rules over the country, has subjugated more than 1 million Uyghur Muslims, an ethnic minority, to reeducation camps, forced sterilization and abortions, forced labor, and surveillance. It’s genocide on an industrial scale.

Last year, the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation received a series of leaked internal documents belonging to the Chinese Communist Party. The findings offer damning evidence of its coordinated efforts against the Uyghurs. You can learn more about them here.

Several nations formerly under communist control, such as Poland, also have museums recounting their own stories of existence under communism. None, however, offer a singular snapshot of its global impact like the new one in Washington.

“There’s nothing like this in the world,” Bremberg said. “It’s extremely important to have this in our nation’s capital. We have millions of tourists, particularly school groups, that come through that really need to learn this, because communism is a horrible evil.”

Although research has shown that up to 1 in 3 millennials view communism favorably, Bremberg thinks it’s the failure to explain the legacy of the ideology—certainly not life under such an ideology—that has given it such an appeal.

“What we’re really trying to do is put the face of the victims of communism forward as a way of educating people,” Bremberg said. “You can draw a pretty obvious conclusion that this is a horrible system of government.”

“[It’s] the scourge of the 20th century, and unfortunately still with us in the 21st century,” he added. “If we want to prevent that from costing untold lives in the future, people need to learn about the crimes of communism … through the experience of its victims.”

Adjacent to the museum’s exit stands a wall visitors pass by before leaving. It’s covered in a patchwork of portraits—the faces of those who have fought back against communism.

Amid the portraits, there are two simple words: “Remember us.”

This piece was republished with permission from the Daily Signal.

AUTHOR

Philip Reynolds

Philip Reynolds is a digital specialist at The Heritage Foundation.

EDITORS NOTE: This FEE column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.