SPECIAL REPORT – The totalitarian Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is not only engaged in global and national influence campaigns, but its corrupting tentacles also reach even down to American state and local politics. (RELATED: China’s Draconian Policies Show What Many Democrats Want for US)
Over the past 15 years, U.S. officials at local, state and federal levels have received pressure through visits, emails and phone calls from Chinese officials intent on pushing their policies in China’s favor.
As I have written about here, here and here, the CCP tends to focus its corrupting influences on currently powerful, as well as up-and-coming Democrat politicians, most vulnerable to their pitch.
Politicos such as Congressman Eric Swalwell and his Communist Chinese staffer (‘concubine’?).
However, a recent report in The Epoch Times (ET) shows how the CCP’s tentacles extend down to the state level and also target Republicans.
Usually, these efforts take the form of promoting apparently benign resolutions of friendship between U.S. states and China, or statements in support of Chinese policies.
The ET report also shows how to fight back.
In one specific case, writes The Times in “late February 2020, as the pandemic was heating up in the United States, when a request from China caught Wisconsin state Sen. Roger Roth’s attention.”
Roth is a Republican, and the request came via email from Wu Ting, wife of the Chinese consul general in Chicago. Wu wanted Roth to help pass a resolution “in support of China’s fight against the novel coronavirus.”
As ET reports:
Once Roth realized the email was legitimate, he became “downright angry.”
“I dictated a one-word response to them, and I said: Dear Consul General, Nuts. Signed respectfully, Roger Roth,” he said. “Not only do we respond to them with the word ‘nuts,’ we even drafted our own resolution on the Communist Party of China, exposing who they really are.”
That one-word reply, a nod to Brig. Gen. Anthony McAuliffe’s famous response to a German surrender ultimatum during World War II, was the last communication Roth had with the Chinese consulate in Chicago. Wu later wrote an email expressing shock at his response, which he never replied to. But that interaction pushed him onto the offensive in Wisconsin.
States which have not been so staunch in their response to Chinese influence efforts include, most egregiously, the New York Senate resolution that was approved in June 2019, which appears to be the nation’s first official gesture to commemorate Oct. 1, marking the CCP’s official violent takeover of China.
The resolution’s lead sponsor, state Sen. James Sanders, didn’t respond to inquiries from The Epoch Times about whether the consulate had any role in the resolution’s eventual adoption.
As ET notes though, these aren’t the only states where Beijing has tried to exert influence:
Around the same period as the emails to Roth, the state of Utah was approving a resolution expressing solidarity with the Chinese people. In language similar to what Wu had put forward, the resolution noted “a friendly relationship and strong economic, cultural, and people-to-people ties” that Utah and China share, and “the unique, 14-year legislative relationship between Utah and Liaoning.”
That Feb. 25, 2020, resolution also urged against virus restrictions that “unnecessarily interfere with international travel and trade and raise fear and stigma.” At the time, the Trump administration had imposed a flight ban to and from China in response to the COVID-19 outbreak in Wuhan, a move that initially sparked condemnation from the Chinese regime and the World Health Organization…
States like Utah that passed such resolutions didn’t know “what was really happening and how they were being used as pawns,” Roth said.
Georgia and New York also have passed a “China Day” resolution.
The Georgia version, passed in 2020, intended to “commend the special friendship between Georgia and the People’s Republic of China” and to “recognize the Consul General Cai Wei of the Consulate General of China in Houston.”
However, Trump’s State Department ordered the closure of that consulate five months later, for being a “hub of spying and intellectual property theft.” (RELATED: Ex-Obama-Biden Aide Pushing CCP China Propaganda via Amazon – Owners of Washington Post)
So, what else can be done about this massive Chinese effort to corrupt our state politicians and institutions?
Roth, the Wisconsin senator, has some excellent ideas.
Since his encounter with the Chinese, reports The Times, he has proposed a series of measures aimed at curtailing Chinese influence in his state.
These include barring Chinese military members from working in the University of Wisconsin system and curbing Chinese recruitment or propaganda programs within the university system.
His proposals should be copied by lawmakers nationwide. (RELATED: Analyst Warns That China Could Exploit Key US Military Weakness)
As Roth stated in The Epoch Times: “As lawmakers all over the country, everything we do plays into a larger narrative,” he said. And we have an opportunity, though it be limited … we have an opportunity to make a stand for freedom, and to make a stand for the freedom-loving peoples of China right now, or who are held hostage by this brutal regime.” ALD
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The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the positions of American Liberty News.
Paul Crespo is the Managing Editor of American Liberty Defense News. As a Marine Corps officer, he led Marines, served aboard ships in the Pacific and jumped from helicopters and airplanes. He was also a military attaché with the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) at U.S. embassies worldwide. He later ran for state and federal office, taught political science, wrote for the editorial board of a major newspaper and had his own radio show. A graduate of Georgetown, London and Cambridge universities, he brings decades of experience and insight to the issues that most threaten our American liberty – at home and from abroad. To read more go to: paulcrespo.com.
biden talks up revolution on national TV, joe biden flying around the county talking up revolution on the jimmy Kimball show, of course on the tax payer dime, probably staying at hunters beach house paid for with art sales, sure, not their chinese friends. The tax payer foots the bill again, this is only going to last as long as you put of with this sxxx..The corrupt democrat machine, the walls are closing in. These crazy democrats have to go, the democrat biden recession is here, interest rates are rising, energy rates are rising, food cost keep rising, inflation is still rising, medical rates are rising, everything cost more, clothing cost more, transportation cost more, get these fxxxing crazy democrats out of office before a total depression happens..tax and spend, tax and spend, enhance your own pockets, fxxx the tax payer, corruption corruption corruption,the new battle cry for these democrats. the mid terms are almost here vote them out keep them out, they just can’t govern. Look how much money the bidens have made off of china. They are trying to deflect their incompetence in government and of course cover over the real issues of real corruption. Midterms ar getting closer, vote them out, jail those who lied to congress and have returns returned that was stolen from taxpayers, biden wants too talks up revolutions, give him one at the polls.
If we don’t get this corrupt mob out of our government, we want have a country.
I agree
Had the constitutional framers (like their early 1600 predecessors) established government and society on the Bible’s immutable/unchanging moral law (including its statutes regarding international relationships and commerce), China would have not its tentacles and hooks in America.
For more on how the Bible’s triune and integral moral law (the Ten Commandments and their respective statutes and judgments) apply and should be implemented as the law of the land, see free online book “Law & Kingdom: Their Relevance Under the New Covenant” at https://www.bibleversusconstitution.ORG/law-kingdomFrame.html
Then “A Biblical Constitution: A Scriptural Replacement for Secular Government.”
The CPC has a 100 year plan to take down America that started 30 years ago. They are using our trade deficit money to implement it. Another key reason we must return manufacturing to the US.
To Counter China:
Boycott products?
Move companies back to US
Reduce tourism
Close college offices
No H1B Visas issued
Americans, in general are STUPID !