White House pushes to combat covert Chinese influence

A little-noticed passage in the Trump administration’s national-security strategy released last month previewed a new push to combat Chinese influence operations that affect American universities, think tanks, movie studios and news organizations.

The investigations by Congress and the FBI into Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential campaign won’t be affected by the added focus on China, officials say. Instead, the aim is to highlight Chinese activities that often get a free pass but can have a toxic long-term effect because of China’s growing wealth and power.

A National Security Council interagency group is coordinating the administration’s study of Chinese activities that are “outside traditional espionage, in the gray area of covert influence operations,” a senior administration official said. The rationale, noted in the 55-page strategy document, is that “America’s competitors weaponize information to attack the values and institutions that underpin free societies, while shielding themselves from outside information.”

In targeting Chinese operations, the administration is walking a delicate line between helping American academics, think-tank experts and journalists resist pressure and fomenting mass public anxiety about Beijing’s activities. Officials say they want to avoid the hysteria of the 1950s — but also help American institutions push back against intimidation from a Chinese Communist Party that is rich, self-confident and seductive in a way that Russia has never been.

What we’re talking about are coercive and covert activities designed to influence elections, officials, policies, company decisions and public opinion.”

An administration official offered examples of how American institutions can be pressured by China:

— Universities host more than 350,000 Chinese, making up nearly a third of all foreign students here. Beijing encourages students to join local branches of the Chinese Students and Scholars Association. Sometimes, students get squeezed. The senior official cites the case of a Chinese student from a dissident family who was warned by a friend not to share personal details — because she would report them to Chinese intelligence.

— Think tanks are eager to study China, but often the money to support research comes from business executives with close relations with Beijing. That can lead to subtle proChina bias. In conversations with think-tank leaders, the senior official said, he has stressed “the need for think tanks to cast a brighter light in this area. We think sunlight is the best disinfectant.”

— Hollywood studios face an especially delicate problem, because the Chinese box office is so important to their bottom line. Ticket sales in China rose from $1.5 billion in 2010 to $8.6 billion last year, second only to America. Inevitably, U.S. studios fear offending Chinese official sensibilities.

— News organizations can face pressure, too. China can restrict visas for journalists or publications it sees as too aggressive. After Bloomberg News published revelations in 2012 about the family wealth of Chinese political leaders, Beijing temporarily blocked sales of Bloomberg’s financial data terminals in China, a potentially crippling move.

China’s glittering modern facade often convinces outsiders that it’s a country just like the West. Not so, says Peter Mattis, a former CIA analyst who now studies Chinese influence activities for the Jamestown Foundation. When American thought leaders interact with Chinese representatives, it’s not a freeflowing “conduit,” he says, but a controlled circuit.

America has never faced a rival quite like China, which presents such a compelling, wellfinanced challenge to democratic values. America certainly doesn’t want a new “Red Scare,” but maybe a wake-up call.