China owns U.S., and it’s not just about TikTok
Beijing's social, military and economic institutions are on the march to take America down
Are Mexican cartels operating a travel agency out of Beijing? The U.S. Border Patrol is encountering thousands of Chinese illegal immigrants. Between last October and April this year, the Border Patrol has encountered over 27,000 Chinese nationals.
Perhaps these are farmers sent here to find more agricultural land to grow soybeans. China already owns about 384,000 acres of U.S. soil, a 30% increase since 2019. Or maybe China needs local managers for its portfolio of real estate assets near U.S. military bases. In 2021, the China-based Fufeng Group purchased 370 acres of dirt 12 miles from Grand Forks Air Force Base in North Dakota. Last year, a Chinese company bought land near America’s largest National Guard training center in Michigan to build an electric vehicle battery plant.
According to a recent Defense Department report, China has 46 military firms and subsidiaries operating within U.S.borders disguised as civilian entities. These developments are part of an obvious strategic plan: The Chinese Communist Party’s “military-civil fusion”program requires Chinese companies to share all technologies with the Chinese army. Huawei Technologies secretly funds cutting-edge research at U.S. colleges and universities, gaining access to new data on biomedical diagnostics and lasers. And the Chinese army controls Huawei.
Don’t expect U.S. academia to fightback. As we’re currently experiencing, many education “leaders” have no moral core—from universities to colleges on down. The Chinese Communist Party maintains ties to school districts near 20 U.S. military bases. Three of the nation’s top science and technology high schools — Thomas Jefferson High School in Virginia, Simpson County Public Schools in Kentucky, and North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics — have ties to Chinese government-affiliated programs.
In recent years, U.S. colleges and universities that were hosting China-funded Confucius Institutes began to pull away, given the negative publicity associated with supporting the Chinese Communist Party playbook. But these organizations are subtly rebranding. According to a 2023 report, schools are helping the party peddle propaganda through what are known as “Confucius Classrooms,” selling the same communism under a different name.
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While influencing students, China also exerts its influence across various media platforms. Through the China-linked company EDI Media, Chinese propaganda is broadcast on TV and radio channels in the U.S., reaching more than 14 million people in Southern California alone through a single radio network. The China Global Television Network reaches tens of millions of Americans, while news sources like Time and USA Today struggle to turn down advertising dollars from mouthpieces for the Chinese Communist Party. Try to imagine the reverse scenario in China.
In medicine, Chinese pharmaceutical companies supply 97% of U.S. antibiotics. About 80% of the active pharmaceutical ingredients used to make drugs in the U.S. come from China or countries that rely on Chinese production.
Chinese companies are stepping into power vacuums, mobilizing in places such as Afghanistan and sub-Saharan Africa to extract natural resources, including cobalt, that are used for military applications. And despite our support for allies, the Chinese support Hamas in Gaza and Russian forces in Ukraine with military hardware. Carrying out the Chinese Communist Party’s “cognitive warfare,” nearly 97% of Hamas-related videos shared on Chinese-owned TikTok are supportive of the terrorist group.
Too many American leaders are soft on China, partly because toeing the Communist Party line can be lucrative. Between 2019 and 2023, China spent more than $330 million on lobbyists — up from $60 million between 2015 and 2018. According to one national security expert, “China’s lobbying roster reads like a ‘who’s who’ of Washington insiders.”
The Biden presidency also has ties to Chinese money, and not just through Hunter Biden’s business dealings. In 2018, the Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement was established at the University of Pennsylvania. In the three-year period around that time, the school collected more than $61 million in gifts and contracts from China.Antony Blinken, now our secretary of state, managed the Biden Center and oversaw the foreign Chinese donations. After Mr. Biden took office, the Chinese money kept flowing. Between mid-2021 and mid-2023, tens of millions of dollars from China benefited the Biden Center.
Chinese social, military and economic institutions are on the march to take America down. Books and articles have provided wake-up calls warning about how we are being threatened. Yet too many in our government and business leadership are still asleep.
Rick Berman is president of RBB Strategies.