Chapter 3 Is United Front Sharp Power?
3.2 United Front Work’s Course of Action
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local support for the political system of the Beijing authorities (Bowe, 2018). In these cases, the United Front work serves the following purposes: promote the preferences narratives of Beijing, force individuals living in a free, open society to self-censor, avoid talking about issues that the CCP is not happy with, harass or even destroy groups that having a critical opposition against Beijing.
Eventually, to wrap up this section, “China’s attempts to guide, buy, or coerce political influence abroad are widespread”, countries like Australia, New Zealand and other states in Europe are also under the wave. Eventually, “China’s foreign influence activities are part of a global strategy with almost identical, longstanding approaches, adapted to fit current government policies. They are a core task of China’s United Front work; one of the CCP’s famed ‘magic weapons’ (法寶) that helped bring it to power” (Anne-Marie, 2017, p.2).
3.2 United Front Work’s Course of Action
As discussed above, the United Front work under Xi Jinping’s office is regards as an important tool, by exploiting individual’s sympathy for Chinese emotion and ideology, as well as providing financial assistance to the key groups, in order to strengthen support for the CCP at home and abroad (Bowe, 2018; Jichang, 2017). The escalating role of United Front is also reflected in the personnel appointment. According to Groot (2015), not only more and more United Front Department Officials have entered high-level positions in the CCP and government, but also more than 40,000 new United Front cadres have been recruited in Xi’s tenure. As reported by James Kynge, Lucy Hornby, & Jamil Anderlini (2017), Beijing are constantly reinforcing efforts in the work overseas, “almost all Chinese embassies now have assigned staff formally tasked with UFWD”. Also, for the purpose of
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ensuring the United Front work follows Xi Jinping’s guidance, the Central Committee of CCP established a “Leading Small Groups” (LSGs, 領導小組) on United Front Work with Xi at its head, “signifying a direct line of command from the Politburo to United Front”.
Conforming to Johnson, Kennedy & Qiu (2017), “LSGs are coordinating bodies that address important policy areas that involve several different (and occasionally competing) parts of the bureaucracy”. Because the Politburo Standing Committee must have some assessments and analyses on policy details before a decisive conclusion on major issues, in addition, it must have an authoritative decision-making essence before being delivered to the relevant units of PRC’s State Council, accordingly, it not only has decision-making functions. Moreover, it is often necessary to first allow the heads of relevant departments to reach a consensus on the content and the nature of the issue, so that they can provide reference for specific projects before submitting to the Politburo Standing Committee, as a result, the project can be smoothly promoted. Therefore, the LSGs is a mechanism similar to “party-government coordination” and “party-government operation”. This originally created information-gathering agencies have become much more involved in the policy setting and implementing than ever before under Xi’s tenure.
Xi Jinping has begun to sense that the outside word is biased against China, must take the initiative to control the world’s impression. According to the report from Hudson Institute, The Chinese Communist Party’s Foreign Interference Operations: How the U.S and Other Democracies Should Respond, “the CCP’s goal is to quell dissenting and negative voices at home and abroad and influence civil society and governments abroad”.
“The CCP, by changing how democracies speak and think about the PRC, is making ‘the world safe’ for its continued reign”. “Its targets range from prominent politicians and
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businesspeople to academics, students, media, and Chinese diaspora communities. With deep coffers and the help of Western enablers, the CCP use money, rather than Communist ideology, as a powerful source of influence, creating parasitic relationships of long-term dependence” (Parello-Plesner & Li, 2018, p.3-4). In the light of Gerald Groot, an author of Managing Transitions: The Chinese Communist Party, United Front Work, Corporatism, and Hegemony (2004), he pointed out that the United Front work is about telling China preferred “China story”, historical interpretation of the CCP’s preferences, and encourage
“stooge” in various countries to promote the Chinese version of narrative (Kuo, 2018). As believed by Annie-Marie (2017, p.6), “Xi’s massive efforts to shape foreign public opinion in order to influence the decision-making of foreign governments and societies, reflects both growing confidence of the Xi government in China’s international influence, and the high stakes strategy he is pursuing to maintain his regime through boosting economic growth and tightening control of information”. Intending to further promote favorable narratives serve Beijing authorities, the CCP utilize overseas United Front work to stifle criticism of its governance and promote positive image on China. It also encouraged voters in democratic countries to influence domestic policies in ways advantageous to China.
All in all, the primary mission of United Front work is to “guide” overseas Chinese, in other words, overseas Chinese are the main targets. As said by Hamilton & Joske (2018, p.4), “their essential purpose is to mobilize sympathetic or potentially sympathetic Chinese community groups to serve the interests of the CCP while at the same time suppressing or marginalizing organizations hostile to the Party”, by using ethnic, cultural, political, and economic ties, ideally of their own accord. Bowe (2017, p.7) also argued that “the UFWD teaching manual directs operatives to win overseas Chinese over to the CCP’s side by
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emphasizing ‘flesh and blood’ ties to China with the goal of securing political, moral, and financial support for the CCP. In order to achieve this goal, UFWD officials often meet with local chapters of ‘Hometown Association (海外同鄉會)’, sometimes along with senior staff from Chinese consulates”.
In March 2018, the CCP reorganized and merged the Overseas Chinese Affairs Office into the UFWD, and fully responsible for overseas Chinese, ethnic and religious affairs.
According to Yang Shu (楊恕), a specialist in Central Asian studies at Lanzhou University, explained that “it means management of religious affairs and ethnic issues will be stepped up, and we could see the authorities taking a tighter grip than before” (Ng & Lau, 2018).
Chinese intelligence agencies will also force overseas Chinese to serve as informer and monitor other overseas Chinese, both in the United States and other countries. This shows that these co-optees are trying to actively engaged in overseas Chinese work while covering up official contacts stealthily. For example, as identified by Chen Yonglin (陳用林), a former diplomat who defected from the Chinese consulate in Sydney in 2005, said that
“When I worked at the Chinese consulate, they were very concerned about the attitudes of overseas [Chinese] students, The Chinese government is definitely organizing them to report back to the party, using a twin-pronged approach of threats and profit” (Ng &
Wong, 2018). And he further explained that “On the one hand they threaten and put pressure on them, and on the other they say that the party will reward those who cooperate, the Chinese Communist Party has poured huge amounts of money into its infiltration networks” (Ng & Wong, 2018).
Over and above, Chinese intelligence agencies will also specifically target minorities, such as Uighurs living abroad, threatening them to be Chinese informer, otherwise they
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will send their relatives in Xinjiang to the “re-education camp”. As a case in point, “Barna, a Uighur who lives in a major U.S. city received an odd message from her mother, who lives in China, asked her to send her U.S. car license plate number, her phone number, her U.S. bank card number and a photo of her ID card”. “Barna knew that their conversation was likely being monitored by the China authority, thus she agreed to send the photo of her ID card”. Barna said, “From her unsettled voice, I can tell she has been pushed by the authorities, for the sake of my mom’s safety, I said OK” (Allen-Ebrahimian, 2018). James Millward, a professor of Chinese and Central Asian history at Georgetown University, also expressed that “I’ve heard about many of these cases of influence and intimidation from Chinese authorities being extended to Uighurs abroad, whether they are students or journalists or everyday people”, “In many cases they are permanent residents, green card holders, or even citizens in the United States, Australia, or elsewhere” (Allen-Ebrahimian, 2018). Referring to interviews conducted by Rajagopalan (2018), a news reporter at BuzzFeed News from Istanbul:
Every person interviewed for this article said state security operatives told them their families could be sent to, or would remain in, internment camps for “reeducation” if they did not comply with their demands. It was a campaign, they said, that aimed not only to gather details about Uighurs’ activities abroad, but also to sow discord within exile communities in the West and intimidate people in hopes of preventing them from speaking out against the Chinese state (Rajagopalan, 2018).
In conclusion, the purpose of this section is to explain how the United Front work operates. I introduce the organizational structure of the United Front, how the CCP eliminate dissentient voice domestically, further explain how they conduct operation overseas through the hands of the oversea Chinese. In order to make the readers better understand the essence of the United Front work, I quote the conference paper authored by
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Annie-Marie (2017), which evidently arrange the purpose of the United Front operation, the agencies responsible for the activities and the policies they have conducted. According to the paper, Xi-era’s political influence activities can be summarized into four key categories:3
1. A strengthening of efforts to manage and guide overseas Chinese communities and utilize them as agents of Chinese foreign policy.
Purpose: to harness the overseas Chinese population for the CCP’s current economic and political agenda, builds on existing practices and then takes it to a new level of ambition. Bring together the hearts and the power of the overseas Chinese.
Agencies: State Council Overseas Chinese Affairs Office, CCP United Front Work Department, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ministry of State Security, PLA Joint Staff Headquarters’ Third Department, and other relevant organs.
Policies:
• Monitor the local long-term Chinese community via community organizations (僑 務社團工作); establish Overseas Chinese Service Centres (海外華僑華人互助中心) to coordinate this work, cherry pick which groups to work with.
• Sponsor and support the emergence of new united front organizations to represent the overseas Chinese, recognizing that they are a diverse group and flexibility is required to establish a positive working relationship with them. Avoid directly interfering in overseas Chinese community affairs unless there is a situation that
3 In this section, I direct quote from Annie-Marie (2017): Magic Weapons: China's political influence activities under Xi Jinping. In this report, the author evidently categorized China’s United Front global operations in four categories, and respectively illustrated the purpose, agencies responsible for the
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directly affects China’s political interests, such as the whistleblower Red Capitalist Guo Wengui (Miles Kwok), whose international campaign to expose corruption and espionage activities of the Chinese government at the highest level has provoked a massive counter-attack.
• Unite the ethnic Chinese communities through nurturing and subsidizing authorized Chinese cultural activities.
• Supervise Chinese students and visiting scholars through the united front organization the Chinese Student and Scholars Association (中國學生學者聯合會).
• Encourage influential figures within the overseas Chinese community who are acceptable to the PRC government to become proactive in helping shape ethnic Chinese public opinion on political matters.
• Encourage wealthy overseas Chinese who are politically acceptable to the PRC government to subsidize activities which support China’s political agenda.
• Draw on China’s agents and informers abroad to enhance China’s political influence.
• Encourage political engagement of the overseas Chinese community (華人參政).
This policy encourages overseas Chinese who are acceptable to the PRC government to become involved in politics in their host countries as candidates who, if elected, will be able to act to promote China’s interests abroad; and encourages China’s allies to build relations with non-Chinese pro-CCP government foreign political figures, to offer donations to foreign political parties, and to mobilize public opinion via Chinese language social media; so as to promote the PRC's economic and political agenda abroad. Of course, it is completely normal and to be encouraged that the ethnic
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Chinese communities in each country seek political representation; however, this initiative is separate from that spontaneous and natural development (Annie-Marie, 2017, pp. 7-8).
2. A re-emphasis on people-to-people, party-to-party, plus PRC enterprise-to-foreign enterprise relations with the aim of coopting foreigners to support and promote CCP’s foreign policy goals.
Purpose: in order to coopt foreigners to support and promote China’s foreign policy goals. Make the foreign serve China.
Agencies: CCP International Liaison Department, Ministry of State Security, CCP national, provincial and city government leaders, Chinese State-Owned Enterprises and Red Capitalists, the Chinese People’s Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries and other such CCP Front organizations.
Policies:
• Strengthen party-to-party links.
• Building a global network of strategic partners—a classic united front approach.
• Appoint foreigners with access to political power to high profile roles in Chinese companies or Chinese-funded entities in the host country.
• Use sister city relations to expand China’s economic agenda separate to a given nation’s foreign policy. The CCP front organization, the Chinese People’s Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries is in charge of this activity.
• Coopt foreign academics, entrepreneurs, and politicians to promote China’s perspective in the media and academia. Build up positive relations with susceptible
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individuals via shows of generous political hospitality in China. The explosion in numbers of all-expenses-paid quasi-scholarly and quasi-official conferences in China (and some which are held overseas) is a notable feature of the Xi era, on an
unprecedented scale.
• The use of mergers, acquisitions, and partnerships with foreign companies, universities, and research centres in order to acquire local identities that enhance influence activities; and potentially, access to military technology, commercial secrets, and other strategic information (Annie-Marie, 2017, pp. 8-9).
3. The roll-out of a global, multi-platform, strategic communication strategy.
Purpose: aims to influence international perceptions about China, shape international debates about the Chinese government and strengthen management over the Chinese-language public sphere in China, as well as globally. Make the CCP’s message the loudest of our times.
Agencies: Xinhua News Service, CGTV, CRI, State Council Information Office/Office for Foreign Propaganda, Ministry of Foreign Affairs and other relevant state organs.
Policies:
• The approach is multi-platform and multi-media. The Xi era media strategy creates new platforms which merge China’s traditional and new media such as Wechat, and takes it to new global audiences in the developing world, the former Eastern Bloc, as well as to developed countries.
• Under the policy known as to “borrow a boat to go out on the ocean” (借船出海) China has set up strategic partnerships with foreign newspapers, TV, and radio stations,
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to provide them with free content in the CCP-authorized line for China-related news.
The formerly independent Chinese language media outside China is a key target for this activity.
• Integrate and “harmonize” the overseas Chinese media with the Chinese media (海 外華人媒體融合).
• Under the policy to “buy a boat to go out on the ocean” (買船出海) China’s party-state media companies are engaging in strategic mergers and acquisitions of foreign media and cultural enterprises.
• Under the “localizing” (本土化) policy, China’s foreign media outlets such as CGTV are employing more foreigners so as to have foreign faces explaining CCP policies.
• A new focus on the importance of think tanks in shaping policy and public opinion.
China is making a massive investment in setting up scores of China, as well as foreign-based, think tanks and research centres to help shape global public opinion, increase China’s soft power, improve international visibility and help shape new global norms.
• Setting up academic partnerships with foreign universities and academic publishers;
then imposing China’s censorship rules as part of the deal.
• Offering strings-attached academic funding through the Confucius Institutes and other China-connected funding bodies, and investment in foreign research centres.
• Under the slogan “tell a good Chinese story,” ( 講 好 中 國 故 事 ) restoring to prominence China’s cultural and public diplomacy. Central and local governments are once again providing massive subsidies for cultural activities aimed at the outside world;
from scholarly publishing, to acrobatics, to Chinese medicine. This policy builds on and
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extends efforts established in the Hu era. China promotes Chinese culture and language internationally through Confucius Institutes, cultural centres, and festivals. The revised strategy particularly focuses on youth; and in countries with a significant indigenous population, attempts to develop close relations with indigenous communities (Annie-Marie, 2017, pp. 9-10).
4. The formation of a China-centered economic and strategic bloc.
Purpose: encouraging public-private partnerships between Chinese SOEs (State-Owned Enterprises) and Chinese Red Capitalists in China and overseas to acquire global natural resource assets and seek international infrastructure projects to create a China-centered economic bloc, one that is “beyond ideology” and will reshape the global order.
Agencies: National Development and Reform Commission (lead agency), State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission of the State Council, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and other relevant state agencies, Chinese SOEs and Red Capitalists, Chinese People’s Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries or such CCP united front organizations.
Policies:
• Use OBOR to stimulate China’s economic development via external projects;
secure access to strategic natural resources.
• Set up trade zones, ports, and communications infrastructure that connects back to China.
• Provide China-based “China-model” training programs and exchanges for foreign government officials.
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• Get foreign governments to do the work of promoting China’s OBOR to their own citizens and neighboring states (another version of “borrowing a boat”).
• Work closely with both national and local government leaders on OBOR projects.
Local governments control considerable assets and can make planning decisions at the local level.
• Invest in both China-based and foreign-based OBOR think tanks to help shape global public opinion, strengthen China’s soft power, improve China’s international visibility, and ability to help shape new global norms.
• Offer governments who sign up to OBOR privileged access to the Chinese market.
• Draw on the resources and assistance of overseas Chinese entrepreneurs to extend the objectives of OBOR.
• Promote the view that that OBOR is a win-win strategy both for China and the countries who accept OBOR projects.
• Use united front work to increase support for OBOR (Annie-Marie, 2017, pp. 10-11).