China's Communist Party is intensifying covert influence operations in the United States that include funding Washington think tanks and coercing Chinese Americans, according to a congressional commission report.
The influence operations are conducted by the United Front Work Department, a Central Committee organ that employs tens of thousands of operatives who seek to use both overt and covert operations to promote Communist Party policies. ...
In addition to Johns Hopkins, other think tanks linked to China and influential in American policy circles include the Brookings Institution, Atlantic Council, Center for American Progress, EastWest Institute, Carter Center, and the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
CAP said they received no money in their collaboration on a joint report.
Although I wonder if the Chinese get much return on their investment. Wouldn't a lot of those think tanks argue for things that China would like anyway?
The article also mentions the Confucius Institutes that are on "hundreds" of American college campuses. Honestly, what can the Chinese persuade these faculty members to do against the interests of the United States that they don't do already for free?
And China works to manage ethnic Chinese people living here.
I certainly wouldn't make it illegal to take money from foreign donors. But it should be transparent. And I'd hope that think tanks would reject money from the communist tyranny that China is.
Remember that Russia's attempts to influence American policy is amateur hour compared to the far better funded Chinese effort which turns out to be even more extensive than I thought it is.
