Protesters Interrupt Senate Hearing, Shout Anti-Ukraine and Pro-China Slogans

U.S. Secret Service officers stop activists of an embassy protection group, including Medea Benjamin of Code Pink, from approaching a back entrance of the Embassy of Venezuela during a confrontation with Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido supporters in in Washington, on May 2, 2019. (Alex Wong/Getty Images)

Pro-China protesters interrupted a congressional hearing on March 22, shouting over Senators and demanding that the United States soften its stance on China’s communist regime and abandon its commitment to arming Ukraine.

Several protesters brandished signs throughout a meeting of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, with some periodically standing and shouting over the Senators until being removed by police.

“China is not our enemy,” shouted one protester, while another accused the United States of “terrorism” and called Russia’s attempted conquest of Ukraine a “proxy war.”

The protesters’ signs said they were aligned with Code Pink, a 20-year-old leftist organization that advertises itself as feminism-centered but primarily interrupts U.S. government proceedings and promotes messages favoring authoritarian powers including China and Russia while discouraging U.S. interventionism.

The organization also disrupted the first meeting of the House Select Committee on Strategic Competition between the United States and Chinese Communist Party late last month.

Committee Chair Bob Menendez (D-N.J.) addressed the audience Wednesday following one such outburst, saying that the protesters were undermining the democratic process.

“I didn’t say anything when you lifted your signs, but once you break into a public outcry and you disrupt the proceedings, that is not democracy in action,” Menendez said.

One protester demanded that the United States accept the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) so-called “peace plan” for Ukraine, which blames the United States and NATO for the Russian aggression.

To that, Menendez encouraged the protester to seek out the opinion of one of the millions of people who had been persecuted, jailed, or tortured by the CCP.

“Maybe you should ask the millions of Uyghurs in concentration camps how they feel about that,” Menendez said, referencing the CCP’s ongoing genocide of ethnic minorities in China.

“Xi [Jinping] is no peacemaker. He seems ready to validate Russia’s war crimes in Ukraine,” Menendez added while speaking with U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken.

Code Pink has promoted anti-American directives for several years, with some of the messaging financially supported by adversaries of the United States.

In July 2022, for example, the Justice Department indicted Russian national Aleksandr Ionov for working on behalf of the Russian government to orchestrate a years-long malign influence campaign in the United States. That campaign included  using U.S. political groups to sow discord, spread pro-Russian propaganda, and interfere in elections within the United States.

One of those propaganda initiatives was a Kremlin-funded effort to start protests in the United States by falsely claiming the country is committing genocide against Black Americans.

Code Pink still maintains a page on its website dedicated to promoting that misinformation and demanding that the United States be subject to an international tribunal.

It is currently unclear if Code Pink has performed similar support for CCP influence operations.