U.S. Ambassador to China Nicholas Burns is slated to speak at an event hosted by an organization linked to Chinese influence operations.
Burns is listed as a key speaker who will address the 5th U.S.-China Hong Kong Forum presented by the China-U.S. Exchange Foundation (CUSEF) and the China Center for International Economic Exchange on Friday and Saturday. In December 2023, the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) described CUSEF as “an organ of the CCP’s approach to influence operations, including those intended to shape Americans’ views toward the CCP-controlled People’s Republic of China (PRC) government.”
“Ambassador Burns did not attend the event in person and submitted pre-recorded remarks,” a State Department spokesperson told the Daily Caller News Foundation. “U.S. diplomats working in the PRC meet with government officials, CCP members, and organizations associated with the CCP as a regular part of their official duties — as they have since we reestablished relations with the PRC. This is how we advance U.S. foreign policy and advocate for U.S. interests and values.”
Burns also addressed CUSEF’s “2023 Hong Kong Forum on U.S-China Relations” via video, according to CUSEF.
CUSEF is a Hong Kong-based nonprofit that nominally seeks to foster “a positive and peaceful relationship between the strongest developed nation and the most populous, fast-developing nation.” The organization claims that it is an independent organization and disputed that it is linked to the Chinese government or its “united front” work, according to the Jamestown Foundation, which the House Select Committee on the CCP has defined as “a unique blend of influence and interference activities, as well as intelligence operations that the CCP uses to shape its political environment.”
However, the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission has characterized CUSEF as a “united front-linked” entity pursuing “efforts to cultivate domestic constituencies that further Beijing’s economic agenda.” Moreover, CUSEF Founder and Chairman Emeritus Tung Chee-hwa was the vice chairman of the 12th National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), another Chinese organization that helps orchestrate China’s influence operations, according to a 2018 report by the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission.
The same 2018 report described Chee-hwa as “clearly associated” with China’s United Front Work Department (UFWD), which is “the lead organization for coordinating and carrying out united front work both inside and outside of China,” according to the House Select Committee on the CCP. More broadly, “China uses ‘United Front’ work to co-opt and neutralize sources of potential opposition to the policies and authority of its ruling Chinese Communist Party,” the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission wrote in the summary of its 2018 report.
“It’s inappropriate for any U.S. government official to participate in what is an explicit united front activity,” Bryan Burack, a senior policy advisor for China and the Indo-Pacific at the Heritage Foundation, told the DCNF. “This is the same organ of the party that exercises totalitarian control over state-approved churches in China.”
The CUSEF event will focus on “[encouraging] frank solutions-building, based on high-level dialogue and to create a new path for U.S.-China relations and broader global stability,” according to CUSEF. Other prominent participants named in CUSEF materials promoting the forum include Chinese Ambassador to the U.S. Xie Feng, Clinton-era U.S. Trade Representative Charlene Barshefsky and Joseph Tsai, chairman of the Alibaba Group.
The White House and CUSEF did not respond immediately to requests for comment.
Editor’s note: This article has been updated to include comment from the State Department.
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