The Biden administration is facing backlash after it was revealed on social media that a top official would be participating in a two-day forum hosted by a group with deep ties to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).
U.S. Ambassador to China Nicholas Burns will be a keynote speaker at the 5th US-China Hong Kong Forum starting Friday, which is being hosted by the China-United States Exchange Foundation (CUSEF), according to the group's website.
Burns' decision to speak there has sparked criticism from China experts, including one expert who told Fox News Digital that Burns is "legitimizing Beijing’s malign influence."
"Both Mao Zedong and Xi Jinping have called the united front a ‘magic weapon.’ It’s highly deceptive because it allows the Chinese Communist Party to advance its interests in America with American voices," said Michael Sobolik, author of "Countering China’s Great Game: A Strategy for American Dominance."
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"If you want to understand Beijing’s long game, look no further. They cultivate relationships with strategically placed Americans to parrot CCP propaganda under the guise of free speech," Sobolik, a Senior Fellow in Indo-Pacific Studies at the American Foreign Policy Council, added.
"By attending this conference, Amb. Burns is legitimizing Beijing’s malign influence. He should be calling it out and blunting it."
"Especially bad decision on the eve of the Hong Kong 47 pro democracy activists scheduled for sentencing," U.S. Director of the Committee for Freedom in Hong Kong Jonathan Stivers posted on X. "State Dept. should be sanctioning HK officials not joining their conference."
Fox News Digital has previously reported on CUSEF's ties to the CCP and its president, James Chau, who "joined CUSEF in 2018" and was "working with its founder The Hon. Tung Chee-hwa" before he became the group’s president in 2023, according to his CUSEF bio.
Fox News Digital has extensively reported on Tung Chee-hwa, who served as a vice chair of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), a key part of the CCP’s united front system, which operates to advance the CCP's interests at home and abroad.
One report details how Julia Wilson, a Black public relations consultant, was paid over $1 million by Chee-hwa's CUSEF to help the Chinese government learn about Black Americans and gain influence with historically black colleges and universities and Black leaders.
"In 2009, the former chief executive of Hong Kong [Tung Chee-hwa] visited me in my office with his staff from the China-United States Exchange Foundation, and they wanted to know how we got a Black president," Wilson, whose office is across the street from the White House, told college students during a 2017 presentation. "They were saying, 'We don't know anything about Black people. So can you write us a white paper and share it with us? How did Black people get enough power to vote a Black man into office?' So they really needed an overview of our history. Who are we? Who are African Americans?"
CUSEF's most recent annual report, which was published in July, reveals how the "independent, non-profit and non-governmental foundation" is heavily influenced by the CCP, ranging from advisers and partners to donors.
One of the top partners of CUSEF is the People's Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries, which was previously labeled as a "Beijing-based organization tasked with co-opting subnational governments" and seeking to "directly and malignly influence state and local leaders to promote the PRC’s global agenda," according to a 2022 report from the Biden administration’s Director of National Intelligence (DNI).
Another partner on CUSEF's annual report is the China Ministry of Foreign Affairs, an instrumental part of the CCP's apparatus that regularly coordinates with top CCP branches and leaders, according to its website. Other partners include top Chinese and American universities like Princeton, Georgetown, Harvard and Columbia. Sidwell Friends School, the elite private school where former President Obama's daughters and President Biden's grandchildren attended, was also on the list.
In addition to Burns, several other former U.S. officials are scheduled to participate in the forum, including former President Obama's ambassador to China, Max Baucus, and Rick Waters, who served as the top China policy official in Biden's State Department.
Baucus, a longtime friend and former Senate colleague of Biden, has extensive ties to China through his institute, which Fox News Digital previously reported was funded by a Chinese company whose founder has deep ties to the CCP and was recognized as the party’s "National Outstanding Communist Party Member" in 2021. His institute's China study-abroad program is also almost fully funded by CUSEF, according to its website.
Baucus also met with Hunter Biden, who boasted that he had a "very good relationship" with Baucus, and his Chinese business associates on multiple occasions, according to emails previously reported by Fox News Digital.
Several of CUSEF's donors, who include Chinese billionaires, also have CCP ties. Wang Jianlin, the billionaire chair of the Wanda Group, is a CCP member and served in the 17th National Congress of the Communist Party of China. He is also a longtime member of the CPPCC. Bernard Chan, another donor listed in CUSEF's annual report, appears to be the same Bernard Chan who served as the Hong Kong Deputy to the National People’s Congress of the People’s Republic of China, the highest organ of state power in the CCP, for 15 years.
Multiple members of CUSEF's governing board also have CCP ties, including Peter Woo, who is currently a member of the Standing Committee of the 11th CPPCC. Liu Changle, the founder of the Chinese state-owned Phoenix Satellite Television, also has several CCP ties, according to CUSEF's website.
The White House, State Department and CUSEF did not respond to Fox News Digital's requests for comment.
Fox News' Jessica Chasmar contributed reporting.
