Appeasement ensures trade flow. Confrontation threatens trade flow. The math is simple.
The biggest and most politically influential corporations and billionaires make the most from China. So, big business and the think tanks, academics, and nonprofits that big business supports mostly tend to favor more free trade with China.
Current Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) laws are horribly inadequate at addressing the $64 million in obvious propaganda operations, much less the $600 billion worth of political influence through trade. New and tougher legislation is urgently needed, given China’s growing economic, diplomatic, and military power. The Biden administration should increase, not decrease, current tariffs against Chinese goods, especially those of a strategic nature, such as pharmaceuticals, personal protective equipment (PPE), steel, and communications devices.
In case of emergency, the United States must not allow itself to become dependent on an adversary nation. Trade with Canada is fine. Trade with China—not so much. Trump’s tariffs against China shouldn’t be frittered away as bargaining chips for more U.S. trade with the behemoth.
China spent more than any other country on the most obvious of foreign influence operations in the United States in 2020, according to the CRP report. Next up were Qatar at $50 million and Russia at $29 million. China Central Television’s U.S. subsidiary (CCTV America) spent more than $50 million. CCTV is one of China’s state-controlled media outlets.
Xinhua’s FARA filing inaccurately describes it as “an independent legal entity.” According to Axios, “In fact, the media organ is owned by the Chinese [regime], run by senior Communist Party officials and widely seen as a Beijing mouthpiece.” Xinhua has bureaus in Washington, Houston, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Chicago. The new FARA registration reveals $8.6 million paid since March 2020 by Xinhua headquarters in China.
Another big Chinese spender in 2020 was Huawei Technologies, at $3.5 million.
“Like those of other nations, Chinese state-run media have resisted U.S. Justice demands to register under FARA, a law originally created to expose Nazi propaganda in the U.S.,” according to Axios. “Prior to their disclosures, these Chinese media organs operated in the shadows, unencumbered by FARA requirements requiring disclosure about their structures and finances.”
The FARA legislation, passed in 1938, is horribly outdated and largely unenforced. It has mostly been used against alleged spies who couldn’t be convicted of more serious crimes. And there are multiple loopholes.
POGO found “many instances in which members of lobbying firms made political contributions to Members of Congress on the same day that those firms were lobbying the Members of Congress or their legislative staffs on behalf of foreign clients.”
In other words, the United States government is a cesspool of foreign influence.
Democrats complain about Russian influence on Trump. Republicans complain about Chinese influence on Biden. Whatever the truth of these claims, let’s get some bipartisan legislation through, and quickly, that outlaws both forms of influence. The U.S. presidency must be completely firewalled from adversary influence, as should, at a minimum, the secretary and undersecretary levels of government.
Any appearance of influence must be removed to shore up confidence in our government. This should be a no-brainer, but apparently our patriotic politicians in Washington are too busy looking for the next buck to do their jobs properly.
FARA lacks sufficient investigative capacities, and only rarely seeks court injunctions against violators. Hard copies of documentation are kept in the office and are not easily accessible online for public inspection. Filing is cumbersome and expensive, often requiring a lawyer to fill out papers. Routine filing, updates, and the submission of auxiliary documents by FARA filers should be automated, simplified, and immediately available to the public through searchable web pages.
Better yet, such foreign influence operations, especially by adversary countries such as China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea, should be made illegal on principle. Former U.S. government personnel and their companies should not be allowed to work for foreign entities after their U.S. government service. Such allowances make them vulnerable to quid pro quo influence while they are still in government office.
Former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, former Secretary of Defense William Cohen, former Secretary of Defense James Mattis, and former Secretary of Homeland Security Tom Ridge have all worked for clients from China, or worked for companies or with individuals that have had Chinese clients. On their watch, the United States weakened relative to China.
Other influential U.S. personages who have benefited from China-linked income after their government service are former Assistant Secretary of Defense Joseph Nye, former Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs Kurt Campbell, and former Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs Danny Russel.
Yes, China might retaliate for truly tough measures against foreign influence by ejecting some Western businesses and reporters. But those businesses are making us dependent on China, and influencing our politics. Western reporters in China are constrained anyway, including through the threat of visa cancellations for negative reporting, and by government minders if reporters stray into sensitive locations such as Tibet and Xinjiang. Such constraints bias their reporting and threaten to make them a form of disinformation through the constraints that their authoritarian hosts engineer.
Until China shapes up, it’s better to make a clean break with the country, including by our businesses and media. Keep reporting about China, but do it from a distance if necessary to remove any question of bias. Keep doing business, but trade with our friends, not our enemies.
