Dr. Darrell L. Smith
About the Author: Dr Smith lived in Asia over 10 years. He is a retired Air Force intelligence officer, Korea Subject Matter Expert, George Mason University adjunct professor, and defense contractor at the Pentagon.
Malign influences are among us. Chinese, Russian, and North Korean operatives are in our midst and the largest offender of U.S. interests between them is China. From propaganda schemes, cultural shows, education centers, and even police stations, this is an ongoing organized campaign by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) within our borders. For example, on 18 December, a naturalized Chinese-American Chen Jinping was convicted for running a Chinese “police station” out of an entire floor of a Manhattan office building pretending to serve and support local interests. This is not a new phenomenon. I personally experienced this CCP tactic while serving in Baghdad when these illegal police stations operated as prolific CCP collection sites during the height of the Iraq War in 2008.
Furthermore, during the first Trump Administration, there were 118 US-based Confucius Institutes recognized as foreign missions by the Department of State and Department of Defense. The US government attempted to dismantle them for manipulating our local communities. However, most closed in 2019 only for half of them to reopen under another nom-de-plume according to Voice of America. They continue their malign influence campaigns complete with secret CCP funds going to recruits. In April, former Harvard Professor Charles Lieber was convicted and fined for his Chinese ties in relation to China’s science and technology recruitment campaign called the Thousand Talents Program (TTP).
Despite these recent convictions, it takes years to investigate and prosecute. Relatively few new cases began under the Biden Administration. In fact, Biden cancelled the US government’s productive surveillance and investigations into China’s TTP under the ruse of funding, priority, and race-baiting excuses. With the negative spotlight on TTP, it’s been reported that TTP morphed into a new name called the “101 Plan” while hiding their true intensions. In November, a translated version of Beijing Science Network News reported the 101 Plan had a foothold in 1,300 universities around the world with a goal “to improve the quality of education”. We should all be asking President Trump’s new leadership at State, FBI, and DNI to take aggressive actions to rid our country of these pernicious CCP programs before we start to believe their propaganda and dismantle our defenses.
