New CCP United Front Minister Signals Escalating Infiltration of Foreign Countries

China's Vice Premier Sun Chunlan, CPC Central Committee Political Bureau member Liu Guozhong and Vice Chairman of Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) Shi Taifeng attend the fourth plenary session of the National People's Congress in Beijing, on March 11, 2023.(Lintao Zhang/Getty Images)

News Analysis

Beijing recently made Shi Taifeng the new minister of the United Front Work Department (UFWD) in a move that can be seen as part of an escalation of overseas influence peddling by the Chinese Communist regime, a China expert suggests.

Shi also leads the China Overseas Friendship Association (COFA), which recruits wealthy and influential Chinese people living in different countries around the world to become directors of COFA and operate as influencers in their local areas for the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). All COFA directors and members must be approved by the UFWD.

“The so-called COFA is UFWD’s overseas ‘sock puppet,’” Li Yanming, a China expert living in America, said to The Epoch Times.

Li pointed out that even the name of COFA is deceptive as it’s hard to know what sort of unit it is. There is no similar organization in the West, indicating that the CCP is reluctant to disclose COFA’s actual function.

Unlike the CCP’s state security and military intelligence systems, UFWD works unofficially, focusing on boosting networks overseas, and recruiting non-professional intelligence personnel.

Overseas representatives of China Development Forum including Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook CEO (L) attend a meeting in Great Hall of the People at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, on March 21, 2016. (Kenzaburo Fukuhara - Pool/Getty Images)

UFWD has a long history of infiltrating overseas countries. It works both politically and economically to bring influential people around the world into the saddle of the CCP.

Domestically, the UFWD will also infiltrate Chinese ethnic and religious minority groups targeted by the CCP.

The Most Powerful Minister

The 67-year-old Shi Taifeng is considered to be the most powerful minister of the United Front in the history of the CCP for his multiple critical titles, such as a member of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee, secretary of the Central Secretariat, deputy secretary of the party group of the Committee of Political Consultative Conference, and vice president of Political Consultative Conference. Shi has also served as vice president of the Central Party School, vice secretary and governor of the Jiangsu Provincial Party Committee, Party Secretary of Ningxia, Party Secretary of Inner Mongolia, and President of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, according to official statements.

It’s a CCP practice for the vice president of the Political Consultative Conference to become the united front minister.

Shi’s promotion to the Central Politburo after the 20th Party Congress in October 2022 signaled his access to the decision-making level of the CCP.

UFWD now has an unprecedentedly extensive jurisdiction, reining in the National Ethnic Affairs Committee and offices catering to Xinjiang and Tibetan regions.

In addition, the State Council’s Overseas Chinese Affairs Office and the State Administration of Religious Affairs, which oversee respectively foreign affairs and religious beliefs, were also merged into UFWD five years ago.

The expansion of UFWD and its minister’s remit indicates that the CCP is ramping up a “grand united front” with aggressive global ambitions, Li said, adding a warning that the international community must be alert to the possibility of a further escalation of the regime’s secret service activities overseas.

Utah, a Heavily Infiltrated State

COFA is active overseas, as exemplified by the recent revelation of its infiltration of the state of Utah despite the tensions between the United States and China.

According to an Associated Press report on March 28, the CCP and its supporters have spent years building ties with officials in Utah. As a result, Utah legislators have delayed legislation that Beijing does not like, vetoed resolutions expressing dissatisfaction with the CCP, and voiced support for ways to enhance the image of the communist regime.

Such a successful effect is thanks in large part to Taowen Le, a Utah resident and a director of COFA.

Le is a professor in the Department of Information Systems and Technology at Weber State University in Utah, according to the report. He attended a meeting of the Political Consultative Conference in Beijing in 2022, when he was quoted in a publication by the UFWD as saying, “I deeply feel the strengths of the Chinese system.”

When a Utah legislator introduced a resolution condemning the CCP’s crackdown on Uighurs in Xinjiang in 2021, Le sent a text message attacking the legislator. That resolution failed to pass that year, and a similar solution in January was not even given a chance to be heard, the report said.

Utah Gov. Spencer J. Cox speaks during a briefing at the Utah State Capitol in Salt Lake City, Utah, on Jan. 8, 2021. (Jeffrey D. Allred/Deseret News via AP)

The report said Le sent a personal request to Utah Gov. Spencer Cox to take a meeting with the Chinese ambassador. He has also organized meetings for Utah and CCP officials, accompanied legislators to China, and advised on how best to win Beijing’s favor.

Le told the Associated Press that his advocacy on China issues is spontaneous and not at the behest of the Chinese regime.

The report quoted U.S. officials as saying that local officials in the United States are at risk of being manipulated by the CCP and that the communist influence movement poses a threat to U.S. national security.

The Epoch Times reporter was not able to contact Le for comment.

Plenty of Overseas Chinese Alliances

In September 2020, the Jamestown Foundation, a Washington-based think tank, released a report that dissected the financial statements of Chinese agencies. It found that UFWD spent more than $2.6 billion in 2019 alone, more than the expenditure of either CCP’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs or the Ministry of Public Security.

Of the $2.6 billion, nearly $600 million was spent on offices to influence foreigners and overseas Chinese communities, according to the report.

In October 2020, Newsweek published an exclusive survey reporting that approximately 600 organizations in the United States maintain regular contact with or are under the leadership of the CCP.

Xi Jinping, deputy leader of the Chinese Communist Party, makes a speech before he opened Australia's first Chinese Medicine Confucius Institute, at the RMIT University in Melbourne on June 20, 2010. (William West/AFP via Getty Images)

Newsweek identified the following types of organizations as being affiliated with the CCP’s UFWD: Chinese Townsmen associations (at least 83), Chinese assistance centers (10), chambers of commerce (32), Chinese language media (13), nearly half of the Chinese professional associations (70), peace unification associations (38), friendship organizations (5), and 129 groups that conduct educational and cultural activities.

“In addition, there are 265 Chinese Student and Scholar Associations for the approximately 300,000 Chinese students in the U.S. These are connected to [CCP] politics, often via Chinese diplomats, usually the education secretary in a consulate,” the investigating report said.

The report also said that it is essential to note that most Chinese in each group may not be made aware of the organization’s ties to the CCP and that individuals may have joined out of a sense of community or for business opportunities.

In this regard, Li believes that most of these organizations look like civil society organizations, but they are all secret service agencies working on behalf of the CCP.

“They [Most overseas Chinese Associations] are on par with the CCP’s overseas nerve system, infiltrating various places and extending the CCP’s ideology overseas,” Li said.