
It’s time to end China’s ‘United Front’ operations inside the United States - drocer88
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/06/10/its-time-end-chinas-united-front-operations-inside-united-states/
======
currymj
While it seems reasonable to try to stop the Chinese government from unduly
influencing US institutions, I am sincerely worried this is just going to turn
into a witch hunt against Chinese nationals in the US on student and work
visas.

~~~
themodelplumber
Correct me if I'm wrong, but given that we as an American institution have
some witch hunts in our past, we ought to be able to carry those lessons
forward and integrate them into a framework which minimizes chances of
becoming a witch hunt.

Additionally, given the parameters listed in the article: The sanctions
approach won't touch Chinese students or workers who are in the US on visas.
Even the moves against Confucius Institutes don't touch individual students.
It seems like a good start if the idea is to avoid individual false-positives
and also blunt the Magic Weapons philosophy.

~~~
currymj
The policies proposed in this editorial seem pretty tame, but they aren’t all
the policies being put forward on this issue.

A recent executive order does target individual students who come from
universities with military ties, even though many of these schools have mostly
civilian students.

The recent prosecutions of scientists who failed to disclose Chinese funding
on grant applications did uncover some real malfeasance but could easily turn
into a witch hunt as well.

------
freshhawk
As a non-american it's weird/funny/interesting/infuriating/typical to watch
Americans get very upset and paranoid about Russians or Chinese actors doing
the things that American actors do, and have done for decades now, in my
country, and many others, all the time.

I know the spin is for an American audience, but it does occur to y'all how
funny it sounds outside your country right?

~~~
brnt
Lets not equate what the Russians and the Chinese are doing with what the US
does. Yes, the CIA did horrible things, but that is now a long time ago.
Russians are still poisoning their defectors, the Chinese are running
concentration camps today. That's all of a very different order, not to say
for a very different purpose, however misguided.

~~~
Pulcinella
The US has concentration camps today. Source:
[https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/07/border-
fac...](https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/07/border-
facilities/593239/)

The CIA still drone strikes weddings. Source:
[https://www.newsweek.com/wedding-became-funeral-us-still-
sil...](https://www.newsweek.com/wedding-became-funeral-us-still-silent-one-
year-deadly-yemen-drone-strike-291403)

These things are still happening.

~~~
brnt
While awful in their own right, it's important to understand the difference in
both scale and reason between such border camps and e.g. Uyghur camps.

------
mariodiana
Back in 2015, _Harper 's_ warned of the insidious influence of the CCP, via
the American corporations that do business in China.

[https://archive.harpers.org/2015/11/pdf/HarpersMagazine-2015...](https://archive.harpers.org/2015/11/pdf/HarpersMagazine-2015-11-0085712.pdf)

------
adventured
For anyone else that couldn't read it:

[http://archive.is/zboZv](http://archive.is/zboZv)

------
bigpumpkin
The title calls for an end to China's United Front operations; the article
doesn't say how it will achieve this other than requiring Confucius institutes
to register as foreign agents. I guess one benefit of fighting against a
covert operations is that you don't have to be specific. Or is the idea to
inoculate Americans against Chinese influence by equating all such influences
with the United Front?

Might I suggest we look at the lesson of history and issue another execute
order like the one made by Truman[1]?

[1][https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executive_Order_9835](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executive_Order_9835)

~~~
SpicyLemonZest
The idea is to identify which messages have been paid for by the Chinese
government. Most Americans recognize that the CCP is not a reliable source,
but they don't always realize that listening to e.g. their campus's Confucius
Institute means listening to the CCP.

------
knolax
half a dozen paragraphs and I still can't tell what this "United Front" does.
The closest thing to a concrete example is:

> oversee United Front work by throwing money at foreign institutions that are
> willing to toe Beijing’s political line, including U.S. think tanks and even
> media organizations.

So a lobbyist group but with less influence?

~~~
zatel
It's a bunch of smaller efforts all working towards a single goal. (think lots
of little foundations and lobbyist groups)

This report goes into a lot more detail
[https://www.hoover.org/sites/default/files/research/docs/dia...](https://www.hoover.org/sites/default/files/research/docs/diamond-
schell_corrected-april2020finalfile.pdf)

------
resfirestar
>the CCP’s United Front effort is unique because it is more organized, more
expansive and more insidious than our government or nation has realized.

If it’s so expansive, give us some real examples! Saying something like this
while giving nothing but unspecific references to a wide-ranging communist
plot (a claim Americans are right to be suspicious of, given the history of
such claims about the soviets) and a reference to the Confucius Institutes
that anyone reading an article like this will be familiar with just makes the
author sound like a political hack with nothing useful to say on the topic of
Chinese propaganda. Maybe that’s not true of the author, but it is true of
this particular article.

------
onyva
Republican worries about repression in China. Perfectly ok with repression in
Russia and the ties between this administration and Russian political
operative? Wow. Mind blown.

------
quotz
Why is the article flagged? I've seen this happen to a few posts about China
lately. Its starting to hurt the discourse on HN, its unhealthy for the forum.

~~~
drocer88
Do they give a reason for flagging? Seems like there's a bias in play.

~~~
GaryNumanVevo
A post becomes [flagged] when enough users flag it, moderators can only
unflag.

~~~
quotz
Yeah but it seems like a lot of "users" flag everything about china lately.

------
Overtonwindow
I think it is unquestionable that China is the United State's primary
competition, and national security adversary. As such, if that is the case,
then we must take steps to protect America from influence and infiltration
from China. If we as a democracy are willing to engage in foreign influence, I
believe firmly a communist government will do it ten times more.

------
nitrobeast
Just an observation, it seems HN is more interested in topics semi-related to
China than BLM or policing reform. I wonder if this reflects something about
HN readers.

~~~
dang
I'd be cautious about drawing conclusions from what you happen to notice.
People's general conceptions of HN are mostly drawn from things they saw that
they disagreed with. There have been plenty of BLM-related threads also, and
I'm sure there will be more.

[https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...](https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=by%3Adang%20notice%20dislike&sort=byDate&type=comment)

~~~
nitrobeast
Ok, I guess it is my bias.

------
quotz
Now even the left are turning against china. Theres hope

~~~
freshhawk
Which version of "the left" was ever not against China? There aren't that many
actual Tankies outside of twitter/reddit.

~~~
AnimalMuppet
Um, would you care to define "Tankies", for those of us not in the know?

And the left, such as we have in the US, may not have been pro-China, but who
on the left was _against_ China?

~~~
freshhawk
Oh, tankie is a pejorative term for authoritarian "communists". The vast
majority of leftists, at this point in time, are very anti-authoritarian.

Everyone on the left hates China except the tiny percentage of tankies. And
I'm using "left" in the political science meaning, so your Democrats are
centrists in that model.

How on earth did you get the idea that any leftists weren't against a very
authoritarian state-capitalist form of government?

~~~
AnimalMuppet
Is Bernie still a centrist in your model? I would regard him as rather left,
at least in the US context.

Is Antifa centrist?

And yet I don't hear either Bernie or Antifa railing against China. (Maybe
Bernie does - I didn't follow him that closely - but he was getting a fair
amount of press, and I didn't notice much on China one way or the other. He
was more focused on domestic policy than international. And Antifa also is
primarily focused on domestic issues. So maybe it's not surprising. Still,
they seem to be ignoring China rather than opposing it.)

~~~
GaryNumanVevo
Just a clarification, antifa is just anti-fascist, and aren't organized at a
national or regional level.

