On September 18, 2017, Anne Marie Brady called from New Zealand and said she had written an essay on Chinese overseas influence activities that she hoped the Wilson Center would put on its website. At the time, I directed Wilson’s Kissinger Institute on China and the United States, where Anne Marie was a Global Fellow. Her essay was on the site by the end of the day.
The appearance of her piece, Magic Weapons: China's political influence activities under Xi Jinping, together with the writing of Australian journalist John Garnault, turbocharged Washington’s concern over CCP influence programs and the role of its United Front agencies.
Over the next few years, I participated in several studies of Beijing’s attempts to shape American institutions and communities. I contributed a chapter and the subtitle for the Hoover Institution’s 2018 report, China's Influence & American Interests: Promoting Constructive Vigilance; wrote the introduction for Anastasya Lloyd-Damnjanovic’s 2018 A Preliminary Study of PRC Political Influence and Interference Activities in American Higher Education; and contributed to the National Academies’ 2023 report, Confucius Institutes at U.S. Institutions of Higher Education, to name a few of the projects I’ve been associated with.
I mention these studies to establish my bona fides as an opponent of Chinese efforts to co-opt or coerce—in Garnault’s formula—or to corrupt, confound, or contain (is any letter as alliteratively useful as “C”?) persons and entities beyond its borders. Warning about the full mission of the United Front and other forms of Beijing skullduggery was, and remains, good work.
But nine years after the publication of Anne Marie’s essay, it is past time to acknowledge that the impact of Chinese influence activities in the United States has been exaggerated and that the threat from China’s United Front has been misconstrued.
I am here using “influence activities” in a limited sense, referring only to Beijing’s attempts to change America’s thinking about China through non-covert activities of the kind that used to be called public diplomacy: academic cooperation, scholarly and think tank seminars, sister city and state programs, tourism, museum exchanges, cultural programming, leased pandas, and the like. In this framework, Chinese espionage, IPR theft, hacking and other cyber intrusions, election interference, covert acquisition of American Chinese-language news media, or surveillance and threats against Chinese, Uyghur, or Tibetan people in America are not “influence operations” or attempts as suasion. They are malicious attacks that must be called out and countered. Yes, some of these offenses are on a continuum with influence programs, but legal activities aimed at changing minds should be distinguished from illegal ones intended to cause harm.
Failure to make such distinctions is one cause of Washington’s exaggeration of the threat of Chinese “influence.” Another is a failure to take a comparative, realistic view. Stand on any corner in any Chinese city, turn in a circle, and you will be unlikely to see a single manifestation of China’s development that has nothing to do with the United States. America’s influence on China—whether in fashion, music, technology, traffic management, architecture, even patterns of thought—is so broad, deep, and pervasive that it is rarely commented on anymore; Chinese simply see it as part of China. Chinese bookstore shelves are packed with translated classical and popular works from America and the West, most of the great and many not-so-great books, as well as volumes on Christianity, the founding fathers, and civil rights. Yes, Chinese bookstores are censored, but Chinese are free to read nearly every book recommended in Hillsdale College’s Liberal Arts Core. Meanwhile—and despite China’s lavishly funded, carefully designed efforts at soft power projection—Chinese influence is all but invisible in the States. In light of this obvious and persistent imbalance, American alarm over Chinese influence activities often seems, for want of a better word (I really can’t find a better word), like whining.
Of course the U.S. should keep a close eye on China’s state-run influence campaigns—constructive vigilance again—but it should also recognize that Chinese “influence” is one of the least of our problems. And we should remain open to influence in the form of organic cultural diffusion, which can’t be avoided anyway. Americans don’t need any influence from the CCP, but we would benefit from an infusion of Tao Yuanming, Zhuangzi, Cui Jian, and Chai Jing. Our mornings would be improved by easy access to jianbing.
Many of China’s influence programs are run through the CCP’s United Front Work Department, an institution formed in 1938 that has always been central to the Party’s domestic and international propaganda work. As the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party put it in its 2025 Memorandum: United Front 101: “United Front work is a unique blend of engagement, influence activities, and intelligence operations that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) uses to shape its political environment, including to influence other countries’ policy toward the PRC and to gain access to advanced foreign technology.”
The Select Committee wouldn’t be doing its job if it didn’t alert Americans to the dangers of cooperating with UF Organizations. But constant, talismanic invocations of “the United Front” risk both understating and overstating the issue. The understatement occurs because florid warnings about the evils of the United Front give American institutions the sense that there is no risk in working with Chinese entities that are not on the list of its formally designated members. This would be a false impression: in Xi Jinping’s China, every entity—corporations, cultural organizations, universities—is required to cooperate fully with the CCP if asked to do so. It’s all United Front all the time. No form of American cooperation with PRC is wholly safe, and never has been, but if U.S. organizations hire staff with experience in parrying Beijing’s attempts at political influence, they can minimize risk and do good things.
The overstatement occurs because, as the Select Committee notes, the United Front also runs China’s engagement activities. This means there is no way of doing anything in China without going through the UF, directly or indirectly. You can’t enter China without clearing customs and you can’t do much once you get there unless you cooperate with the United Front or other gatekeeper agencies. Many United Front personnel see themselves only as helpful facilitators of China’s foreign interactions and, under circumstances beyond their control, that’s what many of them are.
This is not to deny that the United Front is a sticky wicket or that UF goons exist; they certainly do, although most are more unctuous smile than scowl. It is to say that not all American interactions with the United Front should be banned. Personally, I avoid the United Front when I can, but, when I can’t, I shake hands and make the best of things, knowing I can handle them as well as they handle me and that many interactions that serve American interests can’t be conducted without them.
Banning all U.S.-China cooperation that involves the United Front would be a refusal to deal with China as it is. It would also be the equivalent of calling for complete decoupling and alienation between the people of the two superpowers.
Even Marco Rubio thinks that is a terrible idea. At the 2026 Munich Security Conference, he said: "It would be geopolitical malpractice to not be in conversations with China…On areas in which our interests are aligned, I think we can work together to make a positive impact on the world, and we seek opportunities to do that with them...we have to have a relationship with China.”
He elaborated on the theme on September 23, 2026, when asked about what might be achieved at the upcoming Trump-Xi summit: “The relationship between the United States and China will define the 21st century...the idea that we would not interact with them at the highest levels is irresponsible. It’s outrageous. We have to. That doesn’t mean we don’t have strong disagreements. Of course we do. But even at the height of the Cold War, even in the midst of the threat of nuclear annihilation and life ending on the earth, the United States had communications and meetings often with Soviet officials and thank God we did because it prevented a real war…it’s just responsible statecraft for our leaders to speak and meet with one another.”
Rubio’s assessment was neither hawkish nor dovish; it was practical. As is this:
The idea that we would not interact with the Chinese at the personal and institutional levels is irresponsible. It’s outrageous. We have to. We cannot have an effective China policy unless we understand China in its totality, and we cannot do that unless we encourage Americans to live there, study their language and culture, read their foundational texts, and analyze their politics and foreign policy. That doesn’t mean we don’t have strong disagreements. Of course we do. It’s just responsible statecraft to encourage our people to engage with one another.
What’s sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander. Sustained, complex, risky interaction can’t just be the province of top leaders. It must be encouraged for citizens as well, or we will not have the personnel necessary to compete with China, to evaluate developments within the PRC, or to discern when to cooperate with China and when to say no. We will not have populations that are prepared to benefit from improved U.S.-China relations if and when they arrive.
Increasing the alienation between Americans and Chinese by over-reacting to Chinese influence activities—that, too, would be geopolitical malpractice.