Except for Russia, no other country’s efforts to influence American politics and society

Except for Russia, no other country’s efforts to influence American politics and society is as extensive and well-funded as China’s. The ambition of Chinese activity in terms of the breadth, depth of investment of financial resources, and intensity requires far greater scrutiny than it has been getting, because China is intervening more resourcefully and forcefully across a wider range of sectors than Russia. By undertaking activities that have become more organically embedded in the pluralistic fabric of American life, it has gained a far wider and potentially longer-term impact. Summary of Findings This report, written and endorsed by a group of this country’s leading China specialists and students of one-party systems is the result of more than a year of research and represents an attempt to document the extent of China’s expanding influence operations inside the United States. While there have been many excellent reports documenting specific examples of Chinese influence seeking,* this effort attempts to come to grips with the issue as a whole and features an overview of the Chinese party-state United Front apparatus responsible for guiding overseas influence activities. It also includes individual sections on different sectors of American society that have been targeted by China. The appendices survey China’s quite diverse influence activities in other democratic countries around the world. Among the report’s findings: e¢ 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. While many of the activities described in this report are state-directed, there is no single institution in China’s party-state that is wholly responsible, even though the “United Front Work Department” has become a synecdoche for China’s influence activities, and the State Council Information Office and CCP® Central Committee Foreign Affairs Commission have oversight responsibilities (see Appendix: “China’s Influence Operations Bureaucracy”). Because of the pervasiveness of the party-state, many nominally independent actors— including Chinese civil society, academia, corporations, and even religious institutions— are also ultimately beholden to the government and are frequently pressured into service to advance state interests. The main agencies responsible for foreign influence operations include the Party’s United Front Work Department, the Central Propaganda Department, the International Liaison Department, the State Council Information Office, the All-China Federation of Overseas Chinese, and the Chinese People’s Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries. These organizations and others are bolstered by various state agencies such as the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Overseas Chinese Affairs Office of the State Council, which in March 2018 was merged into the United Front Work Department, reflecting that department’s increasing power. Introduction HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_020462