American Elites Have Deep Ties To A New Chinese language Spy Chief

The brand new deputy of a CCP spy company has documented ties with elite U.S. businessmen, college heads, and even the director of the CIA.

• Chen Xu, the previous social gathering secretary for one among China’s most prestigious universities, has been promoted to deputy head of the United Entrance Work Division, an company recognized for conducting espionage and spreading propaganda targeted on influencing overseas elites and coopting Chinese language expatriates.
• Throughout her tenure at Tsinghua College, Chen solid ties with influential Individuals, together with Stephen Schwarzman, the CEO of The Blackstone Group, an funding firm the Chinese language Communist Get together provided with $3 billion in 2007, leading to one among historical past’s largest IPOs.
• In 2013, Tsinghua College’s Schwarzman Students was introduced, a program which attracted the eye of many high-ranking Chinese language Communist Get together figures, corresponding to President Xi Jinping, Vice Chairman of the Chinese language Individuals’s Political Consultative Convention Tung Chee-hwa, and Vice Premier Liu Yandong, amongst others.

The brand new deputy head of a propaganda and espionage company within the Individuals’s Republic of China (PRC) has documented ties with enterprise tycoons, college heads and different elite members of American society.

Chen Xu, former social gathering secretary of one of many PRC’s most prestigious universities, Tsinghua, was promoted to deputy head of the United Entrance Work Division (UFWD), in line with an up to date management roster on the Chinese language Communist Get together (CCP) portal, which was first reported in Chinese language media on Feb. 28.

The United Entrance Work Division

The Division of State described the operations of the UFWD as together with “the use or menace of bodily violence, theft and launch of personal data, espionage, sabotage, or malicious interference in home political affairs, educational freedom, private privateness, or enterprise exercise” in a 2020 press assertion.

The final secretary of the CCP, Xi Jinping, labeled the UFWD a “magic weapon” for “realizing the good rejuvenation of the Chinese language nation” in a 2014 speech celebrating the sixty fifth anniversary of the Chinese language Individuals’s Political Consultative Convention (CPPCC), a state organ which oversees the UFWD.

Just lately, Beijing’s espionage operations have garnered elevated scrutiny within the U.S. following the FBI’s charging of 5 people with “transnational repression schemes” on Mar. 16, crimes which allegedly included the concentrating on of a Congressional candidate.

The Justice Division’s announcement comes simply two months after MI5 named a London solicitor, Christine Ching Kui Lee, as an alleged UFWD operative appearing to financially affect British politicians in a January “safety service interference alert” issued to the Home of Commons.

Republican Rep. Michael McCaul of Texas, who’s the lead of the Home Committee on International Affairs and chair of the group’s China Process Drive, spoke with the Day by day Caller Information Basis concerning the risks of associating with CCP, UFWD and CPPCC members.

“The Justice Division’s indictments this week are yet one more wakeup name that the CCP is actively reaching into American society and making an attempt to restrict our freedoms,” McCaul stated, making reference to the FBI’s Wednesday press convention as proof of the looming espionage menace. “Years of legislation enforcement exercise, together with this week, clearly present that this transnational repression can increase to the extent of legal exercise, and Individuals needs to be conscious when they’re coping with entities who perform the CCP’s targets overseas.” (RELATED: DOJ Kills The China Initiative, Kowtowing To A Chinese language-American Group With Documented CCP Ties)

CEO of Blackstone, Stephen Schwarzman, has met with Chen Xu on a lot of events. [YouTube/Screenshot/SchwarzmanScholars]

Blackstone’s Chinese language Communist Get together-Backed IPO

The UFWD’s new deputy, Chen, has spent years cultivating relationships with U.S. politicians, leaders within the Chinese language-American neighborhood, scholar associations, and different high-profile people, such because the billionaire CEO of The Blackstone Group, Stephen Schwarzman.

Schwarzman’s connections to people tied to the CCP started years earlier than assembly Chen at Tsinghua College.

Schwarzman started touring to China in 1990, however by 2007, when his world funding enterprise, Blackstone, opened its second Asia-Pacific workplace in Hong Kong, Schwarzman had already begun holding common firm with figures immediately and not directly related to the CCP, corresponding to Antony Leung.

Earlier than heading up Blackstone’s Hong Kong workplace, Leung was employed because the monetary secretary of the Hong Kong Particular Administrative Area. In that capability, Leung reported to the Chief Govt of Hong Kong, Tung Chee-hwa, a person linked to PRC affect operations throughout America and somebody the U.S.-China Financial and Safety Overview Fee reviews is “clearly related to the United Entrance.”

Mao Zedong’s proper hand man, Zhou Enlai, was the primary particular person appointed to the place of vice chairman of the CPPCC, a title Tung now holds.

Schwarzman credit Tung’s subordinate, Leung, with the lion’s share of Blackstone’s success within the PRC.

Schwarzman stated it was Leung who was by his facet when he first met with Xi Jinping through the future president’s brief stint as social gathering secretary of Shanghai in 2007, and it was Leung who helped prepare for $3 billion in funding for Blackstone’s June 2007 IPO from China Funding Corp (CIC), a sovereign wealth fund created by the CCP.

“After we had been going public in 2007, we had been planning a $4 billion IPO and the federal government of China got here in and requested can we purchase $3 billion of the $4 billion IPO?” Schwarzman instructed The Financial Occasions in 2020. “This was type of a shock as a result of I’ve not been to China since 1990 and no person buys three quarters of an IPO.”

“So, what we did is, we simply elevated it to $7 billion and we grew to become the world’s second largest IPO of the last decade after Google,” Schwarzman instructed The Financial Occasions. “On account of this, it was for the primary time China had purchased an fairness curiosity in a public firm exterior of China, since fashionable China was established in 1949.”

After going public, Blackstone’s first earnings report arrived in August 2007, exhibiting the agency’s earnings had tripled over a 12 months.

Immediately, Blackstone’s income sits north of $22 billion a 12 months, up from simply over $3 billion in 2007, in line with their annual report, with the corporate now proclaiming itself the “largest proprietor of business actual property globally.” (RELATED: ‘Beat Him Till He Can’t Run For Election’: Chinese language Secret Police Goal Congressional Candidate And Different Individuals)

A determine linked to many malign PRC affect operations throughout the USA, Tung Chee-hwa is the vice chairman of the Chinese language Individuals’s Political Consultative Convention (CPPCC), which controls the United Entrance Work Division (UFWD) to which Chen Xu has been promoted. [YouTube/Screenshot/CGTN]

The Tsinghua Clique

Schwarzman additionally credit Leung with serving to him arrange the 2013 deal for Schwarzman Students, a one-year English-language worldwide program at Tsinghua College which required $300 million in fundraising. 

As a one-party authorities, the political energy to manage the PRC has traditionally been fought over by competing intra-party “cliques,” of which there are recognized to be at the least three: the Shanghai Clique, the Communist Youth League Clique and the Tsinghua Clique, which Xi is claimed to guide.

Chen Xu was promoted to social gathering secretary of Tsinghua College in December 2013 and thereafter grew to become an essential and frequent level of contact for Schwarzman time and time and time once more.

As Tsinghua’s social gathering secretary, Chen held an essential place for each the college and the CCP, with Tsinghua serving as each a fertile coaching floor for home and worldwide expertise, in addition to a succesful automobile for projecting the PRC’s tender energy.

In accordance with her station, Chen was anticipated to advertise the pursuits of each her college, in addition to the CCP, which most of the time had been indistinguishable.

When Xi organized for President Vladimir Putin to obtain an honorary doctorate diploma from Tsinghua College in 2019, it was Chen who “presided over the ceremony and browse out the tackle of honor,” welcoming the Russian dictator into the “Tsinghua household,” in line with a Chinese language state-run media World Occasions report. (RELATED: Beneath Their Strains: American Companies Cancel Russia However Stay Silent On Uyghur Genocide)

The vice premier of the PRC and head of the United Entrance Work Division, Liu Yandong, gave a speech on the annual opening ceremony for Schwarzman Students at Tsinghua College in 2016. [YouTube/Screenshot/SchwarzmanScholars]

Schwarzman Students

When the opening convocation for Schwarzman Students was held, the Nice Corridor of the Individuals — Beijing’s prime CCP venue for “state affairs and diplomatic actions” — was chosen to host the occasion in April 2013.

From its inception, Schwarzman Students attracted high-level CPPCC and UFWD consideration.

David Daokui Li, a member of the CPPCC of which Tung was the vice chairman, was appointed in 2013 because the dean of Schwarzman Students. Amongst different issues, Li would chair a seminar for this system’s admissions attended by CCP cadre from the UFWD, Communist Youth League and central committee, whereas Tung himself sat on the advisory board for this system.

Schwarzman sat beside the CCP’s highest-ranking feminine, Liu Yandong — the vice premier and former head of each the UFWD and Confucius Institute mission — throughout this system’s opening convocation in April, then once more in November 2013 when Liu visited Washington D.C., and once more in 2016 when this system started its first semester.

“The Schwarzman Students program is extraordinarily lucky to have the assist from China’s high management, exemplified by the gracious congratulatory letter from President Xi Jinping and by the unwavering assist of Vice Premier Liu Yandong,” stated Tsinghua College President Chen Jining in April 2014.

Liu reappeared in Schwarzman’s life once more and once more, with Schwarzman labeling Liu a “particular good friend” within the acknowledgment part of his 2019 e book “What It Takes: Classes within the Pursuit of Excellence.”

Schwarzman additionally thanked many different “associates and colleagues within the Chinese language authorities” in his e book, corresponding to “President Xi Jinping, Premier Li Keqiang, Vice President Wang Qishan” and high-ranking affect operatives, corresponding to Solar Chunlan, one other vice premier and former head of the UFWD, with whom Schwarzman Students engaged at the least as soon as or twice.

Chen was additionally thanked within the acknowledgment part of Schwarzman’s e book.

“Get together Secretary Madame Chen Xu at Tsinghua has additionally been a necessary a part of the senior management who created the chance for Schwarzman Students to occupy a novel place on the college,” reads Schwarzman’s acknowledgment. “She and President Qiu have helped create broad assist for this system inside the Chinese language authorities. I all the time get pleasure from assembly together with her and President Qiu on my frequent visits to Beijing.”

Whereas Chen and Tung labored off and on collectively over the years, Schwarzman and Tung additionally continued to remain in contact.

As honorary chairman of the China Normal Chamber of Commerce (CGCC) — characterised as a kind of UFWD entrance group in a 2018 Jamestown Basis report — Tung typically appeared on the physique’s annual galas in New York, together with with Schwarzman in 2017 and the next 12 months.

On stage through the 2018 gala, Tung praised Schwarzman for “his exceptional and impactful contributions to a constructive and cooperative China-U.S. relationship,” earlier than personally presenting the billionaire with the “Goodwill Ambassador for China-U.S. Trade” award.

Whereas Schwarzman Students didn’t instantly reply to request for remark, a spokesperson for Blackstone instructed the DCNF: “The insinuations are false and deceptive. Schwarzman Students is an internationally acknowledged program designed to foster dialogue between nations.” (RELATED: Congress Urges Amazon CEO To Support Tortured Chinese language Whistleblower)

Stephen Schwarzman stands on the podium whereas Tung Chee-hwa waves to the viewers round him through the 2018 China Normal Chamber of Commerce New 12 months gala. [YouTube/Screenshot/ChinaGeneralChamberOfCommerceUSA]

‘The UFWD And CPPCC Are Not Benign Entities’

Not lengthy after serving to set up Schwarzman Students, Schwarzman’s associate, Leung, left Blackstone in November 2013.

Immediately, the senior managing director of larger China for Blackstone is a person named Liping Zhang, one other member of the CPPCC.

The addition of Schwarzman Students to Tsinghua was at least a watershed second for the college, coinciding with a pointy spike within the establishment’s worldwide status, an occasion which additionally dovetailed with Xi Jinping’s rise, providing Chen unprecedented entry to a surplus of world elite and ample alternative to advance her private, skilled, and political pursuits.

“The UFWD and CPPCC should not benign entities,” Rep. McCaul instructed the DCNF. “They’re parts of the CCP charged with finishing up political subversion. Individuals ought to pay attention to their very own publicity to the CCP, which is distinct from bizarre overseas ties.”

“Whether or not it’s spreading CCP propaganda, exporting delicate know-how to China, or lobbying for United Entrance teams, there are various actions that profit the CCP which might be authorized in the USA — at the least for now,” stated McCaul. “As we noticed with the passage of the Uyghur Compelled Labor Prevention Act, which banned the importation of Uyghur slave labor items, issues can change quick because the CCP menace comes into focus. Even in areas the place federal intervention isn’t applicable, cooperation with the CCP is carrying rising reputational, monetary, and ethical prices as Individuals higher perceive our adversary.”

Blackstone and Schwarzman Students are simply two of numerous entities that grew to become acquainted with Chen earlier than she was elevated to deputy head of the UFWD, and this text is simply the primary in a collection investigating the ties Chen cultivated with America’s elite.

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