The New Cold War

THE Cold War was truly a very fascinating period in time, as there has never been a geopolitical schism of that intensity that anyone could remember, that is still relevant to anyone. Especially in our contemporary lenses that is true. The Cold War produced many intriguing tales that people still pick apart to this day, and it practically gave birth to the spy genre!

Some of my favorite stories include the scandal that unfolded in the 1950s when it was discovered that Soviet-affiliated donors had tried to influence the 1956 presidential election! No…wait, that was in 1996, and it involved Chinese financing of the Clinton administration, my bad. Well, there is also the story of how in 1972 it was discovered that a powerful Senator had a Russian spy working in their office for many years, which really is something out of a spy book! Oh…dang, I got it wrong again, that wasn’t in 1972 but in 2013, and it involved Dianne Feinstein employing a Chinese spy for twenty years, until the FBI opened an investigation into him, which was still covered up until 2018. Geez, I wonder if I know about any actually Soviet-era espionage stories, or if they are all just modern tales of spying?

The reason I introduce this article this way is to make an eerie point: we are under attack; we are facing a threat of subversion and infiltration that we have not seen since the height of the Cold War. This scenario is even worse than Soviet espionage and “active measures” because of how overtly they operate, and how terrifyingly successful they have been. The vast network of Chinese influences in American – and Western – politics is a vast and cancerous one that is focused on disrupting American identity and unity so that the vacuum that will ensue upon the collapse of the discordant, untrustworthy, and rotting political system can be filled by an authoritarian system accepted by an exhausted populace primed to accept anything providing peace and security.

From what we know about how Soviet and KGB political, psychological, and social subversion worked in this country during the Cold War as recounted by defectors, and from what we know about the strategic exchanges between Sino-Soviet intelligence communities – which Soviet espionage chief Yuri Drozdov recalled as having involved “Chinese intelligence and counterintelligence officers [undergoing] training in Soviet Russia” and “[the Russians bearing their] souls to them [the Chinese] and [revealing] intimate secrets” – it is suffice to say the vast bureaucratic, anti-Western, and authoritarian espionage operation in China has taken up the USSR’s mantle and Cold War in the 21^st century.

Nothing has changed between 1961 and 2021, except everything Soviet and Russian has transformed into Chinese, and all the proxy struggles, political scandals, honeytraps, rings, and connections that exist in the annals of history or pages of fiction are now executed under the eye and will of the Chinese regime. Now, please, sit back, relax, get a warm beverage, and enjoy this foray into the all too real, ongoing world of the modern Cold War.

Examining this subject is a difficult one, as it is so voluminous and far-reaching, just like the good ol’ days of romanticized Cold War espionage. However, considering how the Cold War never ended, but simply underwent a change of hands, that makes sense. As I stated before, there was no end to the Cold War, but simply a population distracted by the wonders of the 1990s not realizing the fall of the Soviet Union was not the end of internationalist socialism. In fact, China’s own surge in geopolitical prestige might have been accomplished by parasitizing off its Soviet instructors as they declined (Tucker 1995-1996), an almost admirably devilish move.

The best way to analyze the deep and complicated web of China throughout the World, or at least more importantly its archenemy, our homeland, America, we must simply look at the number of powerful and interconnected political circles, corporate circles, academic circles, and others that have been infiltrated, and the individuals involved. Keep in mind, the very fact that these examples of Chinese subversion can be reported on by an independent amateur blogger, but has not been widely reported on by the mainstream media nor led to a massive public uproar should be enough to show you how catastrophic this has become.

During the old Cold War, the best and simplest method to infiltrate a country and acquire critical intelligence was simply using moles, infiltrators who would fake entire careers and lives just to make it into the most advantageous of positions to siphon the most advantageous of knowledge. People like Julius Rosenberg, who was identified by the NSA as the “leader of a productive ring of Soviet spies,” made it into positions that leaked information to the Soviets regarding nuclear weaponry between 1940 and 1945 (the Soviet nuclear program would take off and successfully detonate a weapon soon after in 1949). This espionage tactic is still employed, especially among those Soviet-trained Chinese agents, such as with the staffer of Senator Feinstein who remained in place for two decades.

Another important incident of infiltrators in the congressional intelligence circles came very recently, and like the Feinstein case was suppressed for a few years, until it was leaked. Axios reported in December 2020 that Christine Fang, a political aide who had crisscrossed America for several years becoming buddy-buddy with countless politicians (mayors to councilors to presidential candidates) was a very close partner with Democrat Representative Eric Swalwell – that closeness reportedly boiling over into sexual favors, during a time period likely simultaneous his first and second marriages – who has been a member of the House Intelligence Committee since 2015.

According to Axios’ groundbreaking report, a senior intelligence official stated that this “was a big deal, because there were some really, really sensitive people that were caught up,” and that while the exposure of sensitive intel was still uncertain, information regarding politicians “such as their habits, preferences, schedules, social networks, and even rumors about them” was what Fang could have accessed and leaked. That circumstantial intel still provides a treasure trove of valuable data for her handlers, especially over a five-year period that affected dozens of politicians at all levels of the political hierarchy. Fang’s nationwide network involved politicians such as Tulsi Gabbard and Ro Khanna, she “[oversaw] likely unwitting subagents whom she helped place in local political and congressional offices” (such as one intern in Swalwell’s office) and participated in regional conferences for mayors that helped her develop her network of assets.

Chinese infiltration is a very broad theater, dating back to the 1990s, and as seen by this one woman over a five-year period, can be especially catastrophic. When you account for all the other cases of Chinese spies, from four that were caught passing military intelligence to China for at least fifteen years in 2005, to dozens of others that have been caught over time, and the possibly hundreds of more scattered through our country undiscovered yet, the amount of damage being done to our national security is almost impossible to conceive.

However, infiltration is by far the only tactic the Chinese toy around with, and it is but one angle from which someone can investigate Chinese subversive operations from, as there are other areas of interest that involve surprisingly more overt and organized measures, ones that operate through facades and inconspicuous titles that have wide-ranging influence. This is the corporate and commercial side of China’s campaign to destroy America, the West, and liberty; the side we do business with unknowingly on a daily basis.

The “Committee of 100” is an organization of Chinese-American corporate, political, and academic figures whose publicly stated mission is “advancing constructive dialogue and relationships between the peoples and leaders of the United States and Greater China.” The Committee was founded by high-profile Chinese architect Ieoh M. Pei and the great deep politician Henry Kissinger. In its mission statement alone one can pick out two details that highlight the troubling qualities of the Committee: first and foremost is the use of the term “Greater China”, which is a nationalist and expansionist phrase used by the CCP to imply the reclamation of Taiwan and Mongolia along with the forceful integration of the ethnic regions of Uyghurstan and Tibet. Secondly, there is the goal of encouraging “constructive dialogue and relationships”, but considering the flagrant disparities between an authoritarian socialist police state and a constitutional federal republic, one must ask what exactly they want to work on in America to improve relations between such polar opposites?

There is more concrete info solidifying the Committee of 100 as a Chinese front group, however, such as its methodical reluctance to – when speaking of its glorious homeland – utter anything insensitive or critical, and to toe the party line. The individual figures of the organizations can be implicated, too. Senior member George Koo (who has been a major figure in Sino-American relations throughout his decades-long career) is not only a personal supporter of the CCP, but a senior member of the China Overseas Friendship Association (Diamond and Schell 2019, p. 226). The Committee has been repeatedly targeted by the United Front Work Department (Diamond and Schell 2019, pp. 49, 94, 226-227), the primary organ of China’s non-intelligence-based infiltration and influence of foreign nationals and Chinese people all across the World.

The Committee of 100, with the vast capital its numerous members hold, has been incredibly influential for the three decades it has operated, increasing China's look into America more than vice versa, facilitating upper echelon dialogue between either country for thirty years, and wherever there has been official collaboration between the two countries – such as sending Chinese delegates to the White House or American ones to Zhongnanhai – there is a good chance the Committee has been involved in some way.      

China’s seizure and use of social and human capital on a vast scale does not end here and goes beyond the manipulation of its countrymen. It straight into America’s own backyard. Take for example China’s takeover of the National Baseball Association to ensure both a pro-Chinese and divisive rhetoric is fed to Americans.

For years now, a billion-dollar deal has existed between the NBA and Chinese state entities to provide the NBA with a profitable, vast audience in China that is interested in baseball. However, just as all deals with China – whether they originate at home or abroad – a strict meticulousness and surveillance of oneself to maintain the approval of the CCP must be performed, lest you lose everything. With the NBA, if a droplet of content contrary to Party dogma is leaked, that risk is ran. For instance, when Daryl Morey (former general manager of the Houston Rockets) tweeted in support of the Hong Kong protestors he was denigrated by his own team up to the NBA’s Commissioner, with China making moves to suspend the Rockets’ connection to the Chinese market.

The NBA has sold out itself and its Americanism for China in other instances, mostly hypocritical ones, too, such as when basketball superstar LeBron James took a knee not so much for “racial justice”, but for Chinese loyalty, when he stated – in response to Morey’s noble defense of Hong Kong – that Morey was “[not] educated on the situation” and that “so many people could have been harmed, not only financially but physically, emotionally, spiritually.” One need not try to make heads or tails of LeBron’s statement, because it was not made with logic but blind obedience to the CCP’s whims. The most honest part of his statement was him talking about “financial harm,” which was true, as it was the NBA oh-so tragically at the risk of losing billions of dollars, the rest being a blatant denial, rejection, and hypocrisy towards the Hong Kong people’s actual struggle with physical, emotional, and spiritual pains on behalf of the Chinese regime.

The trafficking of sensitive information on part of individual spies, like the networks operated by the likes of Christine Fang and her associates, to this infiltration of major institutions serve to weaken the integrity of an enemy country and make sure it has no cards left to play, nor a loyal populace to maintain sovereignty over. In essence, divide and conquer. Being aware that there was a problem during the Cold War is what kept America alive, but as a result of the complacency of most modern Americans, we have no idea there is still a conflict, and organized attempts to incentivize government action is dismissed as fearmongering, allowing the Chinese to continue their unimpeded actions against America and her values.

Jim Morrison stated once that, “Whoever controls the media, controls the mind,” and with all of the media we consume being filled with Chinese influences, you can see how China has been so successful, you can see why it adopted its “capitalist” model in the 1980s, not solely to overcome the economic challenges caused by socialism, but to integrates itself into the trade networks of the Western world and buy it out slowly.

Amazon is deeply integrated in China, with around 200,000 Chinese sellers using its e-commerce services and uses a great deal of Chinese [hard] labor to produce its goods, putting a great financial risk on rubbing the Chinese regime the wrong way (like the NBA), resulting in the following situation: Jeff Bezos, as the owner of The Washington Post, has not only turned the paper into an Amazon mouthpiece, but also a CCP mouthpiece.

The content of the [once] esteemed outlet is growing increasingly biased, publishing the advertorial China Watch, which the Post itself described as “prepared by China Daily, People’s Republic of China, [not involving] the news or editorial departments of the Washington Post.” China Daily is a powerful propaganda machine for the CCP, which once described the Hong Kong protests as “[p]arents in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region…[urging] US politicians to not interfere with the SAR’s extradition amendments…” How unbiased!

Then you have CNN, owned by WarnerMedia, which invested $50 millionv into the Chinese investment firm China Media Capital, an investment which WarnerMedia’s Chairman and CEO Jeff Bewkes justified by stating, “Increasing our global presence is one of Time Warner’s strategic priorities and China is one of the most attractive territories in which we operate.” This creates yet another China-dependent financial opportunity for American media to work not to sully, infecting the already notoriously left-biased media outlet with more Chinese influence. The extent of media infiltration in the Cold War was the Hollywood blacklist, and the propaganda machine of the USSR was mostly contained behind the Iron Curtain. China has certainly surpassed its master.

Max Horkheimer, a major contributor to the subversive idea of critical theory (which is widely embraced by the radical left nowadays), once stated that “the Revolution won’t happen with guns, rather it will happen incrementally…we will gradually infiltrate their educational institutions and their political offices…” Horkheimer and his Marxian posse (known as the infamous Frankfurt School) settled into Columbia University in the 1930s, becoming very influential in American academia and to the fledgling New Left, critical theory becoming recognized as “one of the most influential social theories of the twentieth century” (Ray and Elliot 2003, p. 162).

His quote shows very clearly how these sorts of people operate, these gradualist and seditious totalitarians, that they enjoy eroding away the foundation of a civilization rather than usurping it in violent action. Horkheimer and Mao were far from Marxists cut from different cloths. Both were well-read Marxists who read the core texts along with friends and tutors, listening carefully to Marx’s inscriptions, and being inspired by Russia’s revolutions (Pantsov and Levine 2012, pp. 62-64).

          As I continue to write this article, more and more news is coming out about China’s influence and the favors being done for it. From the exposure of our power grid to China, to Biden making excuses for China’s Uyghur genocide, to Biden’s DHS secretary’s colorful record of corruption that includes more than enough kickbacks for Chinese clients, there is just so much happening now that the boys are back in town. We went from slowly surpassing China by taking back our factories, standing by Taiwan, and exiling CCP-affiliated firms from our nation, but now the efforts of the Trump administration are backsliding.

From holding over a $1 trillion of our debt, and huge swathes of our key industries, China is in a key position to do what Papa Russia never did, and without the resistance Trump diligently put up. God knows where we will end up by 2024. Let us only hope, wherever it may be, America is still salvageable.

 

 

BIBLIOGRAPHY

• Diamond, Larry J., and Orville H. Schell III (eds.), China’s Influence & American Interests: Promoting Constructive Vigilance (rev. ed.; Hoover Institution Press, 2019).
• Pantsov, Alexander V., and Steven I. Levine, Mao: The Real Story (Simon & Schuster, 2012).
• Tucker, Nancy B., “China as a Factor in the Collapse of the Soviet Empire.” Political Science Quarterly 110:4, pp. 501-518 (Academy of Political Science, 1995-1996).