To Combat China’s Influence Operations, US Officials Need Sharper Tools and a Deft Touch – The Diplomat

On September 3, the U.S. Department of Justice announced that Linda Sun, a former top aide to New York Governor Kathy Hochul and former Governor Andrew Cuomo, had been charged with acting as an agent of the Chinese government. A few weeks earlier, in two separate cases, U.S. authorities convicted Chinese dissident Wang Shujun and charged another, Tang Yuanjun, for spying on the overseas Chinese pro-democracy community on behalf of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).

The prosecutions are just the latest in a series of such cases in recent years, as the U.S. government steps up its response to CCP influence operations that undermine human rights and democracy within the United States. The growing focus on the threat is certainly needed and a positive development, but U.S. officials face the challenge of maintaining a targeted, proportionate, and rights-respecting approach while also intensifying their overall efforts. Walking this line will require thoughtful policies, updated laws, and careful execution.

Among the many allegations of fraud and criminal conspiracy in Sun’s indictment, one stands out for those who are already familiar with Beijing’s international censorship efforts: In 2021, Sun, using her position in the New York State government, reportedly excised a mention of Beijing’s grave human rights crimes against the Uyghur ethnic minority population from Hochul’s speech celebrating Lunar New Year.

The CCP, under the leadership of President Xi Jinping, has launched a massive campaign to influence how the “China story” is told around the world. Suppressing information about the regime’s horrendous human rights abuses is a key part of this strategy. 

Freedom House has extensively documented Beijing’s global influence campaign, including through a 2022 study that examined actions taken by the CCP and its affiliates to reshape information flows in 30 countries, from the United States to Kenya and Indonesia. Our research found that while some tactics rely on the traditional tools of public diplomacy, many others are covert, coercive, and potentially corrupt.

A key charge against Sun – as well as Wang and Tang – involves a violation of the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA), which requires anyone doing political or advocacy work on behalf of a foreign entity to disclose it and register with the Department of Justice. The indictment says Sun not only failed to register, but also actively concealed her work on behalf of Beijing.

Although federal prosecutors have more strictly enforced FARA vis-à-vis Chinese and other foreign entities in recent years, Freedom House research found that enforcement remains incomplete. Some media organizations designated by the State Department as part of Beijing’s diplomatic presence in the United States were not registered. Even those that had been registered were lax in submitting required reports and informational materials.

At the same time, FARA, first enacted in 1938, has itself faced criticism for its out-of-date and overly broad provisions. The law’s sweeping definitions of “foreign agent” and “foreign principal” make it harder to distinguish legal activity on behalf of a foreign power or entity from illegal activity, and can create an undue burden on nonprofits that engage in legitimate international development and humanitarian assistance work. 

Changes that would make FARA more effective in addressing its core policy goals and more relevant to the tactics of modern foreign influence campaigns are urgently needed. Both the Department of Justice and Congress are aware of this need, but attempts at reform have been caught up in partisan politics.

The arrests of Sun and others have also generated concerns among the Chinese diaspora community. Some worry that efforts to root out spies tied to the CCP can cast a pall of suspicion over the whole community, affecting the views of both U.S. authorities and the larger U.S.  public. There are certainly good reasons for such fears, given the history of racial targeting associated with anticommunist “red scares” and antiterrorist crackdowns in the United States.

To prevent the worst outcomes, government responses to the CCP’s malign influence need to take into account possible negative spillover effects for the Chinese diaspora. Freedom House has long advocated for U.S. law enforcement agencies to develop outreach strategies that will help them connect with diaspora communities targeted by the CCP. Indeed, building community trust is critical to the success of any effort to combat Beijing’s activities, and a number of agencies have made efforts in this direction.

Further engagement should center on the protection of victims of espionage, transnational repression, disinformation, and other forms of CCP interference, instead of looking at the issue primarily through a national security lens. U.S. authorities should also keep in mind that many people in the Chinese diaspora came from a country where law enforcement agencies are regular and unaccountable perpetrators of abuse, which could contribute to their distrust of U.S. law enforcement officials. Rather than going to the community and immediately asking people to identify suspected CCP agents, investigators might start by asking, “What are your needs? What do you worry about? How can we help?” 

If diaspora residents come to see U.S. authorities as just and accountable protectors rather than another threat to their community, the CCP will have already lost an important battle in its global influence campaign.