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China-Japan-Koreas

Pompeo pulls visas for agents of China’s United Front ‘magic weapon’

2020-12-06

[WashingtonExaminer] Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is revoking visas for agents of China’s United Front Work Department, a Chinese Communist Party department that orchestrates foreign influence operations.

"The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has long sought to spread Marxist-Leninist ideology and exert its influence all over the world," Pompeo said in a statement Friday. "The CCP’s United Front Work Department funds and supports overseas organizations to spread propaganda and coerces and bullies those who would oppose Beijing’s policies."

The mass visa revocation marks an attempt to slap away "China's long arm" machinations to harass even Chinese Americans in the United States, following years of complaints from politicians and intelligence officials about such operations. Chinese General Secretary Xi Jinping has called the United Front a "magic weapon" that is contributing to Beijing’s growing power, but controversies stemming from such efforts have deepened Western unease about China’s ambitions.

"Its coercive tactics target individuals viewed as working against CCP interests," Pompeo said. "These malign activities are intended to co-opt and coerce sub-national leaders, overseas Chinese communities, academia, and other civil society groups both in the United States and other countries in furtherance of the CCP’s authoritarian narratives and policy preferences."

The extent of those operations became more obvious to Western allies in 2017, when an Australian senator’s acceptance of travel subsidies linked to the Chinese government snowballed into a scandal over his alleged decision to warn a Chinese Australian businessman that he was being scrutinized by Australian intelligence services.

Chinese government loyalists have cultivated influence in the U.S., too. At an event last year in Hong Kong organized by the vice chairman of a self-described "patriotic united front organization," Neil Bush, the son of former President George H.W. Bush, affirmed that democracy "would not work for China, just like China’s system would not work for us." And Pompeo traveled to Wisconsin recently to warn that Chinese agents are targeting state officials and even local civic organizations.

"Beijing’s infiltration of U.S. society has been deliberate and insidious as they use every instrument of influence available to accelerate their rise at America’s expense," acting Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Marco Rubio

...The diminutive 13-year-old Republican U.S. Senator from Florida...
, a Florida Republican, said Friday morning in a joint statement with Virginia Sen. Mark Warner, the top Democrat on the panel. "Unfortunately, the United States’s challenge with China is not unique as Beijing seeks to infiltrate and subvert other nations around the world, including our allies."

FBI officials also have uncovered a Beijing-run "Operation Foxhunt," which Chinese Communist officials use to target Chinese nationals overseas, including in the U.S. That investigation led to five arrests, while the indictment of several Chinese military researchers who committed visa fraud spurred more than 1,000 other researchers to leave the country, according to the Justice Department.

"I will continue to implement such visa restrictions to make clear that those responsible for actions that contravene the rules-based international order are not welcome in the United States," Pompeo said. "The United States calls on the [People's Republic of China] to end its use of coercion and intimidation tactics to suppress freedom of expression. The United States will continue to review its authorities to respond to these concerns."

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