China’s Influence Peddling

The Hoover Institute has researched the extent of China’s influence peddling in the United States, and warns of profound dangers. The New York Analysis of Policy and Government has outlined research by the Heritage Foundation noting that Black Lives Matter has received funding from Beijing. The problem, however, is far more vast than just the ties of that one extremist organization.

China has moved in a massive way to influence American politicians, universities, and other centers of influence. One well-known example: when a famous basketball player criticized Beijing for its violations of human rights, the entire NBA establishment, eager to expand its presence in the People’s Republic, forced him to recount. Hollywood has changed movie scripts to please Chinese investors. In colleges across the nation, Confucius Institutes run by Beijing influence what is taught in our schools. Individual professors as well as university administrations have been on the take for this purpose. The prominent and powerful Joe Biden family has been vastly enriched by highly questionable financial dealings with China.

In response to these and other factors, a working group was convened by the Hoover Institute. The Group found that China’s coercive and covert activities endanger America’s core values. According to the report, “The Chinese Communist party-state leverages a broad range of party, state, and non-state actors to advance its influence-seeking objectives, and in recent years it has significantly accelerated both its investment and the intensity of these efforts.”

The ruling Communist Party uses a broad range of national institutions to accomplish its influencing goals. These include, but are not limited to, the United Front Work Department, the State Council Information Office, the Communist Party’s Foreign Affairs Commission, the Central Propaganda Department, the International Liaison Department, the All-China Federation of Overseas Chinese, and the Chinese People’s Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries.

In addition to general propaganda and influencing activities, a great deal of attention is paid in two key areas, the Hoover Report notes.

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The first is the Chinese-American community. “China has long sought to influence— even silence—voices critical of the PRC or supportive of Taiwan by dispatching personnel to the United States to pressure these individuals and while also pressuring their relatives in China…Such activities not only interfere with freedom of speech within the United States but they also risk generating suspicion of Chinese Americans even though those who accept Beijing’s directives are a very small minority.”

More popularly recognized in recent years has been the extraordinary effort by Beijing to steal technology. To some extent,this has actually been aided by some U.S. leaders. Bill Clinton, while serving as president, approved the sale of Cray super computers to China. It has been speculated that the PRC’s attempt to funnel cash to his re-election campaign may have been a factor. In 2015, Barack Obama, as noted by the Washington Post, concluded a deal allowing China to buy more U.S.-designed reactors and pursue a facility or the technology to reprocess plutonium from spent fuel, and allowing that nation to purchase reactor coolant technology that could be used to make its submarines quieter and harder to detect.

The Hoover Report notes “China is engaged in a multifaceted effort to misappropriate technologies it deems critical to its economic and military success. Beyond economic espionage, theft, and the forced technology transfers that are required of many joint venture partnerships, China also captures much valuable new technology through its investments in US high-tech companies and through its exploitation of the openness of American university labs. This goes well beyond influence-seeking to a deeper and more disabling form of penetration. The economic and strategic losses for the United States are increasingly unsustainable, threatening not only to help China gain global dominance of a number of the leading technologies of the future, but also to undermine America’s commercial and military advantages.”

The Hoover panel stressed that “three broad principles” should serve as the basis for protecting the integrity of American institutions inside the United States while also protecting basic core American values, norms, and laws.” They include transparency and careful monitoring of China’s activities in the U.S., cooperation between universities and think tanks to enhance sharing and pooling of information concerning Chinese activities, and promoting more closely coordinated collective action to counter China’s inappropriate activities and pressures, and demanding that any access to U.S. institutions should result in equal access by Americans to their Chinese equivalents.

Illustration: Pixabay

Quick Analysis

Russia Expanding Aggression

President Putin is using more than one pathway to enter Europe and undermine the West. While most of the world watches the conflict he initiated in Ukraine, the Russian government is actively pursuing a second front in a little noticed campaign in Cyprus. Although the corrupt Cypriot government ended its issuance of “golden passports” in 2020, Russian intelligence is functioning quietly there to transform this EU country into a Russian beachhead of illicit economic activity aimed at penetrating the capitalist West, according to Paul Goble of the Jamestown Foundation. Cyprus is not a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) nor does it receive as much attention as those countries who are member states. That adds to its allure as a prime location for Russia to attempt to gain a European foothold. Last week a NATO report, cited in the European Daily Monitor, noted that Russian intelligence agents have been plotting to destroy European infrastructure across the continent to disrupt states supporting Ukraine. It further suggests that Putin’s immediate goal is to lay the framework for a future move against the security organization’s members. Hungary, in particular, is another country garnering Moscow’s attention as it opposes the Western response to Russian aggression. Russia is focusing its intelligence efforts on other European, non-NATO member countries in addition to Cyprus, including Austria, Malta, and Ireland. The NATO report suggests that Moscow has had success in disseminating the Russian political narrative in these states to advance its campaign against the West. The island of Cyprus is proving to be a good target for Moscow as it is an ethnically divided island that is part of the EU since 2004. Northern Cyprus, officially called the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC), is a de facto state that is only recognized by Turkey. The division precludes it from joining NATO. As Goble suggests, “it offers Russia troubled waters in which to fish.” Over the last 20 years, he points out, Cyprus’ challenges have opened it to a massive influx of Russian citizens, who now comprise approximately 10 percent of the island state’s population. Over 2,900 residents are Russians who entered until the “golden passport” program that allowed wealthy or well-connected Russians to move to Cyprus. It also provided them with documentation to travel freely throughout Europe! Although less visible on the world’s radar than the war in Ukraine, Moscow is also being helped by Cyprus’ banks opposition to seizing Russian assets and its support in evading Western sanctions. Russia has placed tens of billions of US Dollars there for money laundering. It has been more than two years since a single Russian “diplomat” has been deported and, in fact, the Embassy has grown to over 300 staffers on this tiny island state of only 1.2 million people. The Russian embassy in Nicosia has advanced communications antennae on its roof and opened a consulate on the northern end of the island. Moscow’s Ambassador, Mura Zyazikov, is a lieutenant general in the FSB with no diplomatic experience. The FSB, SVR (Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service), and GRU are actively using the island as a base of operations against NATO Member states, Israel, and other Western allies. Moscow backs pro-Russian political parties who in turn influence Cypriot decisions on education, language, and other issues. “Dmitry Khmelnitsky of the Dossier Center says that its findings should be of concern not only to Cyprus but to the West as a whole. Those who ignore what Moscow is doing because Cyprus does not follow the EU sanctions regime are missing something critical,” says Goble. “Cyprus does not seek to get rid of Russian agents and does not interfere with their work,” Khmelnitsky concludes, “despite the fact that what the Kremlin is doing is so clearly visible.” This has an impact not only on the small island but on the EU, NATO, and the West in general. Earlier this year the Moscow Times reported that when the FBI became more interested in Russian business and oligarchs in Cyprus, at least 10 of the major Russian businesses operating there left. Despite the government of Cyprus’ vow to implement plans for new sanctions against Russia, it continues to ignore Putin’s atrocities in Ukraine and to shield the wealth of the 50,000 wealthy Russian citizens and oligarchs residing there. Daria Novak served in the U.S. State Dept. Illustration: Pixabay