How the CCP Seeks to Control America

How the CCP Seeks

to Control America

For decades, the Chinese Communist Party has worked

to subvert the US from every angle—and has nearly succeeded

Politics

Wall Street

Demoralization

INFLUENCING AND COMPROMISING POLITICIANS

USING INFLUENCE OVER WALL STREET

TO SHAPE US POLICY

DEMORALIZING AMERICANS THROUGH INTERNAL CONFLICT

Over the past 30 to 40 years, the CCP “took advantage of the core power circle in the United States,” said Di Dongsheng, associate dean of the School of International Studies at the Renmin University of China in Beijing. Di described Wall Street as a sector that started exerting “a very strong influence on U.S. domestic and foreign affairs in the 1970s,” and that the regime leadership, seeking to leverage this

to their advantage, “figured out our path and those we could depend on,” he said.

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The CCP has worked for decades to influence and compromise U.S. politicians at every level of government—all the way from school boards and city councils to the White House. In some cases, the CCP uses honeytraps to lure politicians or their family members into compromising situations, which the regime then uses to blackmail them. The CCP also uses so-called “soft-power,” providing incentives to politicians to do its bidding.

The Chinese communist regime has exerted influence over the United States for decades through its “old friends” in Wall Street, a Chinese professor revealed in December 2020.

Communist regimes thrive on conflict. Pro-CCP groups in the United States, such as the Freedom Road Socialist Organization and Liberation Road, were among those involved in the riots seen across the United States in the summer of 2020. The CCP also conducts operations on social media to divide Americans. During the 2020 U.S. presidential election, the CCP conducted an influence operation on Twitter that sought to sow discord.

Hollywood

Censorship

CONTROLLING

FILM STUDIOS

EXPORTING ITS CENSORSHIP MODEL

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Over the past decade, Beijing has significantly expanded its influence in Hollywood by bankrolling top-tier films and using its massive market as a lure. The CCP uses its pull to censor topics while simultaneously promoting anti-American narratives. “Hollywood now regularly censors its own movies to appease the Chinese Communist Party,” then-Attorney General Bill Barr said on July 16, 2020. China’s Wanda Group owns the film studio Legendary and, up to 2018, held a majority stake in AMC Entertainment. Other U.S. firms have entered joint ventures with Chinese studios.

In China, all digital speech is controlled by the CCP. In recent years, the Party has worked to export its model of censorship around the world. One such example is the mobile chat-app WeChat, which is popular among China’s diaspora. The app comes with similar censorship controls as those seen in China. Additionally, U.S. social media platforms have been known to cater to the CCP’s demands. According to Barr on May 28, 2020, these platforms censor “particular content including, in many cases, at the direction of foreign governments like Communist China.”

Propaganda

Surveillance

SURVEILLING AMERICANS THROUGH TECHNOLOGY

SPREADING PROPAGANDA THROUGH STATE-OWNED MEDIA

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Chinese technology, both software and hardware, poses espionage risks since all Chinese companies are beholden to the Party and must cooperate with intelligence agencies when asked. This risk applies to a range of products, from apps like TikTok to Chinese-made drones. Meanwhile, the U.S. National Counterintelligence and Security Center has warned that Chinese biotech firms like BGI, a genetics giant, have been collecting Americans’ health care data, including DNA information, to advance the regime’s own medical research.

The CCP uses Chinese state-owned entities to publish its propaganda in the United States. Two of the main examples are China Daily and state television CCTV. The China Daily newspaper is delivered every day to the offices of all U.S. congressmen, for example. The CCP also uses U.S. outlets such as The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Wall Street Journal to publish its propaganda as advertising inserts. It also has used radio stations in Mexico and Canada to broadcast its propaganda into the United States.

Business

Opioids

CO-OPTING

BUSINESS ELITE

FUELING A DEADLY DRUG CRISIS

scrutiny in recent years for spreading the Chinese regime’s propaganda narratives and suppressing free speech.

The U.S. Department of Education also found that universities received almost $1.5 billion in contracts and gifts from China from 2014 to 2020.

The Trump administration cracked down on Beijing’s efforts to steal American research by prosecuting academics who hid their links to China, barring entry to graduate students affiliated with the Chinese military, and targeting undercover Chinese military scientists working at U.S. schools.

Education

INFILTRATING AMERICAN CAMPUSES

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U.S. business leaders have become the “principal targets” of Chinese influence operations in the United States, according to Barr. “Privately pressuring or courting American corporate leaders to promote policies or U.S. politicians presents a significant threat,” he said. “Hiding behind American voices allows the Chinese government to elevate its influence and put a ‘friendly face’ on pro-regime policies.”

China is the largest source of fentanyl, a synthetic opioid, and other fentanyl analogues that enter the United States. Opioids (natural and synthetic) were the cause of 49,860 deaths in the United States in 2019, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Though the Chinese regime has pledged to stem the flow of fentanyl into the United States, U.S. officials have criticized Beijing for not taking active measures to crack down on fentanyl production and distribution in China.

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Beijing funds Confucius Institutes and Classrooms—language and culture programs at colleges and K-12 classrooms, respectively—which have drawn

Intellectual Property

Economy

Media

an undervalued currency, these firms then have an advantage when competing on the international market. Cheap Chinese goods, as well as counterfeits, are also dumped into foreign markets. Meanwhile, foreign firms face considerable barriers in accessing the Chinese market and must transfer their intellectual property as a condition for entry. The regime now aims to become the world’s high-tech manufacturing powerhouse under its “Made in China 2025” plan.

The United States has become reliant on China for certain critical supplies, such as drug ingredients and rare earths, leaving it vulnerable to the regime’s economic coercion.

‘ROB, REPLICATE, REPLACE’ TO

WEAKEN US ECONOMICALLY

INFLUENCING US

MEDIA OUTLETS

ACQUIRING US TECHNOLOGY BY ANY MEANS NECESSARY

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Media executives and journalists have been targeted by Chinese groups with links to Beijing. CUSEF, a Hong Kong-based nonprofit linked to the regime’s influence efforts, has organized dozens of trips to China for journalists at more than 50 U.S. outlets. It also has organized private dinners with media executives.

U.S. media outlets have been incentivized not to publish content critical of the Chinese regime, out of fear that Beijing will retaliate by cutting their access to the Chinese market.

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Through subsidies and other unfair trade practices, the regime has propped up domestic companies to be leading global manufacturers, ranging from the steel to the pharmaceutical industries. With the help of

China’s state-sanctioned campaign to acquire American technology involves both legal and illegal means. All of society has been mobilized for these efforts, according to FBI Director Christopher Wray. Besides hackers, researchers and company insiders have stolen U.S. technology to benefit the regime. Chinese state-backed recruitment programs incentivize U.S. researchers to transfer know-how and technology to the country. The FBI opens one China-related investigation every 10 hours, Wray said.

Hacking

Pandemic

Chinese city of Wuhan, but downplayed the crisis and suppressed any information at odds with the official narrative that the virus was containable. This coverup allowed the virus to spread beyond China’s borders, sparking a pandemic that has caused more than 2 million deaths and upended the global economy.

In the early stages of the pandemic, China also stockpiled personal protective equipment (PPE) from around the world. Later, when the outbreak worsened in other regions, the regime portrayed itself as a global savior as it donated or sold PPE to other countries.

STEALING TRADE SECRETS AND AMERICANS’

PERSONAL DATA

COVERING UP

AN OUTBREAK

AND CAUSING A GLOBAL CRISIS

institutions for trade secrets and personal information. In 2018, two hackers working for China’s top intelligence agency were indicted for launching a massive campaign to steal data from firms spanning a range of industries. Chinese hackers have been behind massive cyber hacks in recent years—including intrusions on the U.S. government’s personnel agency, credit reporting agency Equifax, and health insurer Anthem—which resulted in the theft of personal information from tens of millions of Americans.

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For at least three weeks, Beijing knew about the severity of the CCP virus outbreak in the central

Armies of state-backed hackers target U.S. government agencies, companies, and research

Global Influence

International Institutions

Diplomacy

United Front Operations

UNDERMINING US ALLIANCES AND BUILDING DEBT TRAPS

SPREADING BEIJING’S NARRATIVES

SUBVERTING UNITED NATIONS AND INTERNATIONAL BODIES

CONTROLLING THE CHINESE DIASPORA

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Dubbed “wolf warrior” diplomacy in reference to two hit Chinese action films with nationalistic overtones, Chinese officials recently began using Western social media platforms to verbally spar with critics of the regime and to spread disinformation. In the wake of the pandemic, Chinese diplomats used inflammatory rhetoric to deflect criticism of Beijing’s mishandling of the outbreak in China. In 2020, the Trump administration ordered the closure of the Chinese Consulate in Houston, stating that it was a “hub of spying and intellectual property theft.”

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The Chinese regime’s United Front Work Department directs a vast network of overseas Chinese cultural and business groups, student groups, and media to advance Beijing’s agenda and coerce others to do the same. Beijing especially targets the Chinese diaspora and pressures Chinese citizens worldwide to serve “their homeland,” including by disseminating its narrative in Chinese-language media around the world; suppressing dissident movements; recruiting spies; and facilitating the transfer of tech innovations from foreign countries to China.

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The Chinese regime seeks to grow its economic and military influence in the Indo-Pacific region, threatening the United States’ alliances there. It also aims to persuade developing countries that its authoritarian model is a viable path toward economic prosperity. Through its Belt and Road Initiative, the regime finances infrastructure projects throughout southeast and central Asia, eastern Europe, and Africa, and causes these countries to become heavily indebted to China. Meanwhile, it also exploits natural resources and strategic trade routes to its benefit.

The Chinese regime has expanded its influence at the United Nations and other international bodies, swaying their agendas. Chinese officials currently lead 4 out of 15 U.N. specialized agencies; by contrast, only one is led by a U.S. official. Beijing’s influence over the World Health Organization undermined the world’s response to the pandemic. In early 2020, the health body uncritically repeated Chinese officials’ line that there was no human-to-human transmission of the virus, aiding Beijing’s coverup of the outbreak. A U.N. whistleblower also revealed that the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights provided the names of dissidents to the Chinese regime.