What Fadden warned about in Canada is no doubt happening in other countries around the world, as the Chinese regime finds means to influence politicians of other countries to do its bidding.
One way the Chinese regime has been making an organized effort to influence other governments is through a little-known set of organizations called the Councils for Promoting Peaceful Reunification (CPPRs), whose putative role is promoting Taiwan’s reunification with China. The CPPRs claim to be NGOs operating independently in their host countries, but they seem to be anything but that.
Consider the Overseas Chinese World Conference for Promoting Peaceful Reunification of China held on Sept. 17 in Washington, D.C. The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs website’s description sounds like that of a Chinese state-run conference: “The heads of the relevant departments, representatives of the provinces and cities from China, the representatives of the ‘Councils for Promoting Peaceful Reunification’ (CPPR) of Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macao, the anti-independence and promoting-reunification representatives from all over the world, the local overseas Chinese and Chinese American representatives in the United States, as well as experts and scholars, attended the conference. More than 500 representatives share the view of the peaceful development of two sides of the strait and the great cause of the unification of the motherland.”
The keynote address for the conference was given by Zhou Tienong. Zhou is the vice-chairman of the National People’s Congress and the vice head of China Council for Promoting Peaceful Reunification (CCPPR).
The CCPPR was established on Sept. 22, 1988, in Beijing. At the beginning, it claimed to be a “nongovernmental group organized by all circles of people who advocate peaceful unification of China.”
In 2000, the overseas CPPRs started setting up. However, probably because the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) preferred to control the CCPPR directly, the United Front Work Department of the CCP Central Committee began running it on Sept. 27, 2004.
Currently, the head of the CCPPR is Jia Qingling, a Standing Committee member of the CCP Politburo. No matter how the CCPPR is disguised, it can only be considered as part of CCP’s united front work—the effort in countries around the world by the CCP to enlist people and organizations not affiliated with it to advance its agenda.
The CCPPR website lists 131 CPPRs on all continents, as if they are its overseas branches. This point was graphically made by a picture that used to appear on the CCPPR website showing all of the CPPRS with lines leading back to Beijing. The picture has been deleted.
The heads of the CCPPR regularly visit CPPRs in other countries and attend their conferences. The heads of overseas CPPRs attend CCPPR’s conferences in Beijing every year and make trips to Beijing to report their activities in foreign countries. These visits back and forth are regularly reported by the CCP’s media inside China and by Chinese-language media outside China.
The stated mission of the CPPRs is to work for the reunification of Taiwan and China. But most of the 131 CPPRS are based in countries that do not even have diplomatic relations with Taiwan.
In fact, the CPPRs’ actions often involve policies that are not related to the Taiwan issue. Here are several examples.
On April 3, 2008, Nancy Pelosi, then speaker of the House of Representatives, introduced House Resolution 1077, calling on the Chinese government to begin a results-based dialogue, without preconditions, directly with His Holiness the Dalai Lama to address the legitimate grievances of the Tibetan people and provide a long-term solution that respects the human rights and dignity of every Tibetan.
Li Nianci, North California CPPR chairman, then initiated a letter campaign to Nancy Pelosi to pressure her to stop criticizing the Chinese communist regime and threatened to “voice their opinions with their votes.” Fifteen CPPRs in the United States jointly wrote a letter to strongly oppose Pelosi’s “anti-China” stand.
During the 2006 Overseas Chinese World Conference for Promoting Peaceful Reunification of China, which was held in Macau, the Spanish CPPR chairman, Xu Songhua, said that on the issues of Taiwan, Tibet, and Falun Gong, overseas CPPRs “cooperate with the Chinese embassies and consulates to do well in relevant work and to uplift China’s international status.”
On Jan. 20, the Russian CPPR held a photo exhibit defaming Falun Gong. It claimed by doing so to help Chinese Russians, Chinese immigrants, and merchants to be on the same page as the Chinese regime on the issue of Falun Gong.
There are 17 CPPRs in the United States alone. If they don’t do anything to benefit the community and only follow orders from and report to Beijing, don’t they qualify as foreign agents? Shouldn’t they register as foreign agents according to the Foreign Agents Registration Act?
I don’t want to see somebody in my backyard without knowing who he is and what he is doing.
This article relied on research done by the World Organization to Investigate the Persecution of Falun Gong published in its “Investigative Report on CCPPR-Led United Front Work” (www.zhuichaguoji.org/en/node/211#)
