United Front 101: Gallagher In-Depth Explainer on Select Committee's CCP Influence Operations Memo

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Xi Jinping calls it the Chinese Communist Party’s “magic weapon”.

Mao called it one of the two weapons the “heroic warrior” wields to shatter the enemy’s positions.

Were they talking about nuclear technology? Advanced submarines? 

No. They were talking about United Front work, the CCP’s global influence campaign and political warfare strategy.

United Front work connects the illegal Chinese police station discovered in Manhattan, thugs assaulting overseas Chinese students at American universities, the ongoing genocide in Xinjiang, and billions of dollars of IP vanishing from US laboratories.

Welcome to United Front Work 101 – a crash course in the covert influence and intelligence operations of the Chinese Communist Party.  

United Front Work is the party’s strategy to fight unrestricted, political wars through three main tactics: silencing criticism of the regime globally, promoting propaganda abroad, and manipulating foreign institutions through clandestine and outright illegal operations. 

Perhaps the best summation of the united front strategy I’ve heard is simply three words, “making idiots useful,” meaning co-opting any individual or organization to advance the goals of the Party.

United Front Work has played a central but poorly understood role throughout the CCP’s history.  

Even prior to the Communist takeover in 1949, UF work was critical for the party’s survival by co-opting domestic and international forces sympathetic to the CCP’s cause. 

Xi Jinping has once again elevated the stature of United Front work. 

The Central United Front Work Department, which reports directly to the CCP’s Central Committee, is the lead organization to coordinate and carry out UF work both inside and outside of China. 

Inside China, the department has played a central role in formulating, implementing, and defending policies to “Sinicize'' China's ethnic minorities. This includes the ongoing genocide of the Uyghurs in Xinjiang, the religious persecution in Tibet, and the repression of Hong Kong under CCP rule.

Abroad, the department oversees subordinate networks and civic organizations deeply embedded within Western society to destabilize the foundations of our civic life – including – but not limited to, American industry, universities, media, and all levels of government.

One example of a United Front network in the U.S. is the Thousand Talents Program. 

Thousand Talents is a CCP recruitment scheme for overseas scientists that’s been linked to economic espionage and the UF Work department runs the official association for its participants.

Our own FBI says that this program openly encourages theft of U.S. trade secrets. 

The Chinese government has even sent thousands of military scientists abroad, including by using this program, to gather scientific-military know-how, obtain sensitive details regarding emerging technologies at elite U.S. universities like Harvard. 

Confucius Institutes were also originally established on American college campuses as a part of the UF Work system, and have helped support China’s military industrial complex. Many Chinese Student and Scholars Associations surveil and report on any Chinese students’ dissident activity. 

Pro-CCP entities have acquired previously independent Chinese language media abroad. Several overseas Chinese-language media outlets are owned or controlled by the UF work department through China News Service, including CHIAU-BAU, which operates in the U.S.

Beijing has even deployed a "50 Cent army" of trolls to flood internet discussion with CCP Propaganda on American social media. 

The CCP’s strategy of “elite capture” includes well-connected American leaders like those gathered at the gala dinner thrown in Xi Jinping’s honor in San Francisco. The dinner demonstrates how effectively the CCP has executed its strategy of elite capture in our country – from corporate executives, to bankers, to university presidents, to politicians and their families. 

Civic organizations in the U.S. connected to UF work also seek to influence and control individuals abroad who criticize Beijing, including overseas Chinese nationals alongside Uyghur, Tibetan, Hong Kong and Taiwanese Americans. 

For example, this past April the CCP mobilized groups with United Front ties, such as Alliance for China’s Peaceful Reunification, to join protests against Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen in New York and California. 

Additionally, dozens of civic groups tied to UF work across the U.S. and Europe help operate secret CCP police stations, such as the America Chang-Le Association, which housed an undercover police station in the heart of New York City. These stations are used by the CCP to harass Chinese Americans and enforce their laws abroad, thus violating our sovereignty. 

What United Front Work shows is that the CCP believes we are in an existential struggle over what life will look like for the rest of the 21st century. 

So, what can we do?

First and foremost, Americans need to understand that the CCP’s United Front work is not just a distant over there threat. It's a right here at home threat.

That’s why here in Congress, on the Select Committee on the CCP, we have introduced federal law that would increase foreign agent registration requirements.

But this is just the beginning. 

If we do not curtail malign CCP influence on American soil, future generations will look back and ask why we allowed, and even invited, a “magic weapon” to be used against us.