Adolf Hitler devoted two chapters in his controversial book ‘Mein Kampf’ to study and practice the art of propaganda. Following in his footsteps is China and its communist government led by none other than President Xi Jinping. A shocking report by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) has come out where the Institute examined the operation of the United Front, which Jinping had once described as his secret “magic weapon”, which has spread its deadly tentacles around the world by infiltrating universities, parliaments, civil societies, and even religious places.
What is United Front?
China uses the “United Front” to co-opt and neutralize sources of potential opposition to the policies and authority of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) inside the country as well as outside. Simply put, the United Front is a coalition of groups and individuals working towards the CCP’s common goals against its enemies to pin them down. These operations are mostly covert and deceptive and they spread beyond China’s borders.
The report states that these secret Chinese operatives are on a mission to infiltrate and influence almost every aspect of Australian life, from politics and business to the media.
Australia targeted by United Front
TFI has extensively covered the Diagou debacle and how China hoarded billions of worth of medical equipment from Australia before the Coronavirus reached the pandemic levels, all under the nose of its governments. The Diagous don’t have the legs to undertake these massive hoarding exercises, it is ‘United Front’ that pumps in the resources and the money.
In the wake of Coronavirus pandemic which has alarmed nations across the globe about China’s misadventures, Australia has been at the forefront fighting Beijing. The trade relations between Beijing and Canberra have deteriorated to new lows as China continues to strong-arm the Kangaroos. Now, the Scott Morrison government is waking up to the threat of United Front which has infested the down under country.
The report stated that “The Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) attempts to interfere in diaspora communities, influence political systems and covertly access valuable and sensitive technology will only grow as tensions between China and countries around the world develop.”
Not only Australia, the United States, and other countries are also the target
Wang Yang, the fourth-ranked member of the Politburo (the Communist Party’s command) and one of Xi Jinping’s closest aides runs the United Front Work Department (UFWD). The covert organization has been in existence for a long time but in a globalized world and since China opened up to the World, the scope and scale of this surveillance/propaganda machinery has evolved.
Conventional wars are costly and more often than not the results are not beneficial for any party but using these silent assassins to infiltrate countries and change the policies and laws covertly is what modern-day espionage looks like.
Surely lots of countries try to spread influence abroad through soft power, government media or propaganda, lobbying, and even intelligence operations. India does too but none have the scale and expanse as such China’s United Front.
And it’s not only Australia that has been feeling the heat of these covert communist puppets. The United States of America is infested by the rot of United Front.
According to a US daily, Wealthy members of the CCP’s political organs, including former Hong Kong chief executive Tung Chee-Hwa, oversee United Front work by throwing money at foreign institutions that are willing to toe Beijing’s political line, including US think tanks and even media organizations.
"This reporting was supported by the China-United States Exchange Foundation (CUSEF)" What? You know CUSEF is chaired by a top official in the Chinese Communist Party's influence operations network, right? https://t.co/tHyiEErio0 @vox @yochidreazen
— Josh Rogin (@joshrogin) June 13, 2018
With media reports coming out about the menace of the United Front and its workers, the Republican Study Committee (a group of 150 Republican lawmakers) on Wednesday released a report that spelt out its national security strategy and called for sanctions on all top officials in the CCP’s United Front Work Department.
The reason Republican Study Committee spelt out a report is because the United Front has been hurting the American cause by infesting its institutions from inside.
TFI had reported how China had spent millions of dollars to buy the media houses in America to toe its line. Buying out the foreign media encompasses in United Front’s policy.
In China Daily’s disclosure submitted to the Justice Department for the period between November 2016 and April 2020, it has been revealed that CCP pushed in a whopping USD 19 million into the pockets of some major media houses of the US like the New York Times and the Washington Post.
The United Front undertakes heavily resourced campaign to acquire sensitive US technologies and intellectual property through the secret agents who masquerade as students and workers and come here to study and work.
American President Donald Trump as a security measure had banned certain Chinese students from studying in America by issuing a proclamation last month.
A Chinese Professor who taught at the University of Texas was charged with stealing state of the art technology from a Silicon Valley firm, late last year. He had turned out to be a secret agent for Chinese tech major Huawei, which is blacklisted in the United States over security concerns.
Confucius Institutes on dozens of U.S. campuses have “longstanding and formal ties” with the United Front Work Department
Reported by TFI, the US Federal Bureau of Investigation, Department of Homeland Security, and cybersecurity experts had warned in early May that the Chinese hackers were trying to steal research on developing a vaccine against coronavirus. These hackers also come under the purview of the United Front.
The menace of CCP’s United Front existed before COVID-19 too but the threat of growing ‘magic-power’ of China must be curtailed after we have seen the Chinese influence over the word in the wake of a pandemic.
Subsiding political and international borders, countries need to work together to curtail this demon that is faceless and shapeless, yet, is staring right at us and inflicting harm on our nations, more so than ever.
