Congress warns America has little grasp at how deep the Communist Party’s

• China spends billions on the united front system each year and has a deep operation within the US 
• ‘The United States has no direct analogue, and the U.S. Government has struggled to counter united front work with traditional counterintelligence’

The United States has little grasp of how deep China‘s network of espionage and influence operations runs through the nation, a dire warning from Congress has revealed.

The Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) presence on American soil has already revealed itself in the network of secret police stations in major cities and the ‘Little Red Classrooms’ in kindergartens.

Now, members of the bipartisan House China Select Committee have released a memo detailing how the U.S. has failed to combat Beijing‘s infiltration – and it could get worse.

The threat comes from the united front, a political strategy Xi Jinping has called his ‘magic weapon’.

It’s the plan the CCP uses to influence beyond its circle without the information appearing to come directly from the Chinese government.

China spends billions on the united front system each year. United front is affiliated with some 600 groups in the U.S., according to a 2020 Newsweek report, that are all in regular touch with the CCP.

‘United front work damages U.S. interests through legal and illegal technology transfer, surveillance of Chinese diaspora communities, promotion of favorable narratives about the PRC through ostensibly independent voices, and the neutralization or harassment of critics of the CCP,’ the new report found. 

‘The United States has no direct analogue, and the U.S. Government has struggled to counter united front work with traditional counterintelligence, law enforcement, and diplomatic tools,’ it warned. 

The background memo is meant to guide Americans to remain vigilant if they are targeted by China’s influence operations. 

‘Through its united front work strategy, which Xi Jinping has called a “magic weapon,” the Chinese Communist Party uses every tool at its disposal, whether legal or illicit, to influence the American people and interfere in democratic societies,’ Chairman Mike Gallagher, R-Wis., said in a statement. 

‘An important, but little understood, aspect of the Chinese Communist Party’s misinformation, propaganda, and influence efforts both in the PRC and abroad is the CCP’s united front system. This background memo provides information about united front activities, and can be a potentially helpful guide in addressing and countering them,’ added ranking member Rep. Raja Khrishnamoorthi, D-Calif. 

President Joe Biden met with Chinese Leader Xi Jinping two weeks ago as concerns soar over issues including Taiwan, Beijing’s actions in the South China Sea sanctions, heightened espionage, trade and human rights.

The goal of united front work is to help China take over Taiwan and establish a new global order that revolves around CCP values and interests. 

The United Front Work Department (UFWD), which reports to the CCP, controls ostensibly non-governmental groups like academic institutions, non-profits and media. It also oversees groups that operate within the U.S.: National Association for China’s Peaceful Reunification, which operates in the Washington, DC, area and Alliance for China’s Peaceful Reunification, USA. 

The UFWD  also ‘played a central role in formulating, implementing, and defending policies to “Sinicize” China’s ethnic minorities, including the ongoing genocide of the Uyghurs in Xinjiang,’ according to the memo. 

The CCP uses united front affiliated groups to monitor and track Uyghurs and mobilize propaganda to counter criticism of its treatment of the Muslim minority group.

The memo went on: ‘In addition to promoting narratives favorable to the CCP abroad, the UFWD collects intelligence, exerts control over overseas Chinese-language media outlets, seeks to influence Chinese diaspora groups, facilitates illicit technology transfer, and interferes in politics in other countries, including by co-opting and influencing foreign academic, political, and business elites.

‘The networks built by the UFWD are often viewed as prime operating grounds by the PRC’s intelligence agencies, which seek to draw on members of united front organizations to support espionage and influence operations,’ the report went on. 

The memo warned united front work focuses on targeting key groups to win over liasons to spew its messages: members of China’s eight minor parties, those without political…