SLC Spies
Following up on Tuesday’s story, here is a detailed story on how the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) gets involved in local American politics as a means of gaining influence for Chinese government interests—far away from the foreign policy machinery of the U.S. government in Washington, D.C. The Associated Press published the report, describing subtile and barely hidden attempts to get American politicians to back Chinese officials, legitimizing the dictatorship in the eyes of ordinary citizens of the People’s Republic of China (PRC).
From the intro:
An investigation by The Associated Press has found that China and its U.S.-based advocates spent years building relationships with the state’s officials and lawmakers. Those efforts have paid dividends at home and abroad, the AP found: Lawmakers delayed legislation Beijing didn’t like, nixed resolutions that conveyed displeasure with its actions and expressed support in ways that enhanced the Chinese government’s image.
Its work in Utah is emblematic of a broader effort by Beijing to secure allies at the local level as its relations with the U.S. and its western allies have turned acrimonious. U.S. officials say local leaders are at risk of being manipulated by China and have deemed the influence campaign a threat to national security.
The rest of the report is here, and it spells out the depth of the influence operations.
One might, of course, reply that the subtlety of the activity suggests that the threat isn’t very great. What harm can there be, after all, in America’s state and local officials issuing legislative proclamations siding with the official government line in Chinese domestic politics?
The harm is that it is used by the CCP as an endorsement of the dictatorship’s rule and authority. It supports the PRC government over the complaints and criticisms of the citizenry that their government abuses the people it rules. Even though the people of the PRC cannot elect their own government, U.S. elected representatives are used as proof that the CCP dictatorship is endorsed by the world’s biggest, oldest democracy.
If the relationship between the United States government and the government of the PRC were fair and reciprocal, the CCP would permit American government officials and civic organizations to get similarly involved in Chinese local politics, promoting American national interests. Instead, the CCP only allows opinions that praise the CCP’s rule, above all endorsing Xi Jinping as the wise, legitimate ruler.
A self-respecting democracy’s policies toward hostile powers would look much different in an ideal world. In fact, even during the less-than-ideal conditions of the Cold War, the U.S. government and both political parties supported public relations campaigns criticizing the dictators of the Soviet Union for their foreign and domestic repression and illegitimacy. I’m afraid that the foreign influence campaigns inside the U.S. by the likes of the Chinese government, among others, have made it harder to unite American opposition against them.
I made the mistake of reading TD comments today. They weren’t nearly as bad as I expected, with the exception of one of the usual suspects who shall remain unnamed but with the initials PR, telling us how “everything I predicted has happened.” Yeah, I’ll always interact respectfully to someone yelling “I told you so!” at me. Another guy referred to The Cult and I called him on it. I’m such a slow learner but sometimes the free entertainment is too hard to resist.
As a nation, we are often our own worst enemy when it comes to looking out for our own 'interests'.
The Chinese 'influence thing' (read that piece yesterday) at local levels is bad for the same reason that allowing Tik Tok to operate in this country is bad. I'm not talking *security* vis a vie Tik Tok, though there seem to be more than enough concerns in that area alone. The reason this is all bad is that there's no *meaningful* reciprocation on the part of China to any of the huge advantages we confer upon it in any real and substantive way, and it has always been thus since Nixon opened our national door to them.
Regardless of how much semi-capitalism has developed in China's economy since Tricky Dick et. al. thought we could best influence these guys by trading with them, the CCP pulls all the strings and calls the shots. Period. So, we give nearly unfettered access to our markets and de facto free reign in influence operations with our elected officials to an authoritarian regime hiding its hostility to democracy and our country under a completely transparent veil of free trade. And they give us a bunch of cheap consumer goods in return, and a dependence upon them for a lot of things we ought not be dependent upon them for, such as drug manufacturing. (No, I'm not talkin' mail-order fentanyl. But there is that to consider, too.)
Hell of a deal, if you ask me. But no one asked me. So, I'll shut up about it now.