{"id":1986750,"date":"2023-07-31T12:16:02","date_gmt":"2023-07-31T16:16:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/as-the-white-house-downplays-chinese-influence-operations-beijing-renews-efforts-to-infiltrate-american-colleges\/"},"modified":"2023-07-31T12:17:49","modified_gmt":"2023-07-31T16:17:49","slug":"as-the-white-house-downplays-chinese-influence-operations-beijing-renews-efforts-to-infiltrate-american-colleges","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/as-the-white-house-downplays-chinese-influence-operations-beijing-renews-efforts-to-infiltrate-american-colleges\/","title":{"rendered":"White House downplays Chinese influence, Beijing renews college infiltration efforts."},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"float:left\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">20<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fas-the-white-house-downplays-chinese-influence-operations-beijing-renews-efforts-to-infiltrate-american-colleges%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1986750&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div>\n<h2>A Think Tank&#8217;s Influence on American College Campuses<\/h2>\n<blockquote>\n<p>A\u2064 think tank believed to conduct influence operations\u2063 on behalf of the Chinese Communist Party has renewed its\u200b campaign \u200bto \u2064push pro-Beijing views on American college\u200b campuses as the Biden \u2062administration downplays China\u2019s\u200c intelligence operations aimed at the \u200dUnited States.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>The China-U.S. Exchange Foundation (CUSEF), a centerpiece of the CCP\u2019s &#8220;united \u2064front&#8221; influence apparatus, has in recent months \u2062organized events at Columbia University, Johns Hopkins University, and the University of Missouri-St. Louis to promote \u200bcloser ties between the United \u200bStates and China, according to the group\u2019s website.<\/p>\n<p>The foundation, which is registered with\u200c the \u200dJustice Department as a foreign agent of China, has also \u200borganized\u200c trips \u200bfor university students to China \u200bwhere they\u200c met with diplomats from China\u2019s ministry \u200dof\u2064 foreign affairs and the Chinese People\u2019s Association for Friendship with Foreign\u2063 Countries, another Chinese Communist \u2064Party front group\u200c that American intelligence officials say has &#8220;sought to directly and malignly influence&#8221; state and local leaders\u2063 in the United States to \u2063promote China\u2019s \u2064&#8221;global agenda.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>CUSEF\u2063 has maintained a low profile\u200b in\u200c recent\u2064 years amid \u2064scrutiny over its ties\u2064 to the CCP\u200d but has renewed its university outreach\u200c programs\u2063 as \u200cthe Biden administration has downplayed concerns about China\u2019s intelligence operations in hopes of preserving diplomatic relations with Beijing. President Joe\u200b Biden has dismissed concerns about a Chinese surveillance balloon that flew across the United States earlier this year, and the administration has largely ignored Beijing\u2019s\u2063 hacking of\u200c emails of \u2064Ambassador Nicholas \u200cBurns and Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo. American officials \u200chave shied\u2064 away from confronting Beijing for fear of \u2063hindering \u200ccollaboration \u2062on\u2064 climate change\u2064 and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/never-seen-anything-like-it-elon-musk-reacts-to-global-supply-chain-issues\/\" title=\"\u2018Never Seen Anything Like It\u2019: Elon Musk Reacts To Global Supply Chain Issues\">global supply chain issues<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s not a coincidence \u200cthat CUSEF, a known <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/red-handed-6-million-biden-family-deal-was-with-ye-jianming-who-had-ties-to-a-spy-linked-united-front-group\/\" title=\"RED-HANDED:  Million Biden Family Deal Was with Ye Jianming Who Had Ties to a Spy-Linked \u2018United Front\u2019 Group\">united front organization<\/a>, is getting back\u2064 into the game\u200c right now. Ties between Washington and Beijing are gradually warming as the Biden \u200badministration attempts to reset \u200cwith the CCP,&#8221; said Michael Sobolik, a senior fellow \u200cof Indo-Pacific studies at the American Foreign Policy Council.<\/p>\n<p>Sobolik said college administrators &#8220;have no valid \u2062excuse&#8221; to\u200d work with CUSEF given all the \u2062publicity about its links to the Chinese \u2063Communist Party.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;CCP partnerships may be lucrative today, but they imperil academic freedom\u2062 in \u2064the \u2063long run,&#8221; \u2063Sobolik told the <em>Washington Free Beacon<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>American officials have sounded the alarm for years over CUSEF\u2019s relationships with universities and think tanks. In 2018, Sen. Ted Cruz \u2064(R., Texas) pressured the University of Texas to block funding from the foundation, which\u2063 was formed by Tung Chee-hwa, the vice chairman of \u2062the Chinese People\u2019s Political Consultative Conference, an advisory body to the Chinese Communist Party.\u200b Since then, other universities have cut\u2063 ties \u200bwith \u2062CUSEF. So have think tanks like the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and the liberal <a href=\"https:\/\/freebeacon.com\/national-security\/how-a-liberal-think-tank-did-chinas-bidding-on-climate-change\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Center for American \u200cProgress<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>CIA director William Burns,\u2063 the former president of the Carnegie\u200b Endowment, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.intelligence.senate.gov\/hearings\/open-hearing-nomination-ambassador-william-burns-be-director-central-intelligence-agency\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">said<\/a> in 2021 that he cut ties with CUSEF when he led the think tank &#8220;because we \u2064were increasingly worried about the expansion \u200bof Chinese influence operations.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>CUSEF has conducted some programs with American colleges, including <a href=\"https:\/\/freebeacon.com\/national-security\/how-china-used-a-prominent-hbcu-to-spin-its-pandemic-response\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">a research project<\/a> with \u200cstudents from Morgan State \u200bUniversity\u2064 to study the responses in the United States and China to \u200cthe coronavirus pandemic.\u2064 The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/as-the-white-house-downplays-chinese-influence-operations-beijing-renews-efforts-to-infiltrate-american-colleges\/\" title=\"White House downplays Chinese influence, Beijing renews college infiltration efforts.\">report included subtle jabs<\/a> at former \u200cpresident Donald Trump and American leaders\u2019 handling of the pandemic.<\/p>\n<p>In its\u2062 latest initiatives, CUSEF is \u200cworking with several American nonprofits known\u2064 for their sympathetic views of Beijing.<\/p>\n<p>One of those is the University of Montana\u2019s Baucus Institute,\u200d led \u2063by Max\u200d Baucus, who\u200b served as \u200dU.S. ambassador to China under President Barack Obama.<\/p>\n<p>Baucus, a <a href=\"https:\/\/freebeacon.com\/national-security\/dem-max-baucus-attacks-china-critics-on-chinese-state-tv\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">vocal defender<\/a> of Chinese \u200bforeign policy, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cusef.org.hk\/en\/who-we-are\/newsroom\/montana-students-experienced-chinese-kunqu-opera-in-shanghai\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">last\u2064 month<\/a> organized a visit to China where he introduced students to officials from the Chinese Ministry of \u200cForeign Affairs and from the Chinese\u2064 People\u2019s Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries, which the U.S. intelligence community says \u200d&#8221;has sought to directly and \u200dmalignly influence state \u200cand local\u200b leaders to promote the PRC\u2019s global agenda.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The \u200caim of\u200d the trip was to promote &#8220;the understanding and cooperation&#8221; and emphasize\u200b &#8220;the importance of Sino-US relations.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>CUSEF\u200d organized <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cusef.org.hk\/en\/what-we-do\/in-country-programs\/creating-relationships-through-education\/american-law-students-visit-china#article-header\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">a trip<\/a> \u2063 in May \u2063with the U.S.-Asia\u200b Institute to Beijing for American law students\u200b in order to \u2063foster \u2064&#8221;a better understanding \u2063of the country and engaging \u200dwith the Chinese legal and governmental systems.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The think\u2064 tank hosted <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cusef.org.hk\/en\/what-we-do\/in-country-programs\/creating-relationships-through-education\/university-of-missouri-st-louis-conference-on-us-china-business-relations#article-header\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">an event<\/a> on April 18 \u2064at the University\u200b of Missouri-St. Louis \u200dwith the United States Heartland China Association, another group \u200dsympathetic to Beijing, to promote a &#8220;deeper understanding of U.S.-China relations.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>It hosted events on April 7 and April 12\u200c at Columbia University and Johns Hopkins\u2063 University, respectively. The \u2063Exchange Foundation\u2063 invited as \u200ba speaker Shao Yuqun, the director \u2062of the Institute for \u200bTaiwan, Hong \u2064Kong &#038; Macao Studies. <a href=\"https:\/\/books.google.com\/books?id=VNDFCgAAQBAJ&#038;pg=PA244&#038;lpg=PA244&#038;dq=%22Institute+for+Taiwan,+Hong+Kong+and+Macao+Studies%22+%22cicir%22&#038;source=bl&#038;ots=-bgTqHMYYA&#038;sig=ACfU3U2fhiOmq80MwtVck3EZxG7AA_DT6A&#038;hl=en&#038;sa=X&#038;ved=2ahUKEwiI9dXovbCAAxVVlYkEHbdTARoQ6AF6BAgXEAM#v=onepage&#038;q=%22Institute%20for%20Taiwan%2C%20Hong%20Kong%20and%20Macao%20Studies%22%20%22cicir%22&#038;f=false\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">According to China scholars<\/a>, the institute operates under the direction of the Taiwan\u2062 Affairs Leading\u200b Small Group, which <a href=\"https:\/\/jamestown.org\/program\/chinas-espionage-against-taiwan-part-ii-chinese-intelligence-collectors\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">is affiliated<\/a> with China\u2019s top intelligence \u2062agency,\u200b the Ministry of\u200c State Security.<\/p>\n<p>Shao <a href=\"https:\/\/www.siis.org.cn\/dbfile.svl?n=\/updates\/cms\/cms\/202208\/191408457z3s.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">recently criticized<\/a> former House speaker Nancy Pelosi (D., Calif.) for visiting Taiwan, whose independence is a point \u2063of contention between Washington \u2062and \u200cBeijing. Shao asserted the United \u2064States is in the grips of &#8220;institutional decay&#8221; and that\u2062 policy toward \u200cTaiwan &#8220;is being taken hostage by certain interest\u2063 groups.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The China-U.S. Exchange Foundation and the universities it has worked with \u200bdid not respond to requests \u2063for comment.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>restarted its efforts to promote pro-Beijing perspectives in American universities. Despite the Biden administration&#8217;s dismissal of China&#8217;s intelligence activities targeting the US, the CUSEF, a think tank associated with the Chinese Communist Party, continues to play a significant role in the CCP&#8217;s influence operations.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":155,"featured_media":1986751,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[544],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1986750","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-free-beacon"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1986750","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/155"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1986750"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1986750\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1986751"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1986750"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1986750"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1986750"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}