National Pulse has published an exclusive report revealing that the Knight Foundation, which has ties to George Soros, has significant investments in China and Russia.
According to the report, the Knight Foundation, a left-wing organization with ties to George Soros that claims to address disinformation by funding anti-conservative media and “fact-checkers,” has invested in companies with ties to the Russian government and the Chinese Communist Party.
The group’s latest financial disclosure shows that Knight Foundation has invested more than $17 million in an investment fund tied to the Chinese Communist Party and more than $1.2 million in Russia Partners, a group that boasts ties to the Russian government and the Chinese Communist Party. “which boasts close ties to “Russian government leaders.
Their financial ties have been uncovered as the group continues to peddle conspiracy theories about Russian influence in the 2016 election and claims to “protect press freedom” while investing in countries where the press sector is consistently ranked the least free.
Chinese Capital and Growth
Since at least 2011, the Knight Foundation’s financial disclosure forms have shown two investments: IDG-Accel China Capital II and IDG-Accel China Growth III.
The most recent financial disclosure on the Knight Foundation’s website shows a total value of $11,597,551 and $6,066,392 for these two investments in 2019, respectively.
From 2013 to 2015, the fund’s financial disclosures also listed China as a “foreign country in which the organization has a financial interest.
The two Chinese private equity funds describe themselves as “making investments within China,” often in state-owned enterprises.
At least a dozen employees of the funds have ties to the Chinese Communist Party, including former officials in the technology and urban planning sectors and the State Council, former employees of the Communist Party’s military proxy, China Mobile, and recipients of the Communist Party’s “Promoting Regional Economic Development” award.
Senior advisor Jiang Jianning also serves as chief advisor to various Chinese Communist Youth League oversight bodies.
He is also the head of the Communist Party’s official media, a former employee of the state-owned investment fund, a researcher and professor at a state think tank, and a college with ties to the Communist Party’s military.
The investment fund aims to promote the Chinese economy, describing one of its main goals as “upgrading and transforming the Chinese economy by working with Chinese companies to acquire technology and industrial know-how overseas,” and acknowledging that it has “cooperated” with the Communist Party’s municipal governments.
The fund also invests in companies that see the Communist Party as clients and includes companies such as Tencent, which the U.S. State Department has called “a tool of the Chinese (Communist) government,” in its portfolio.
Russia
Since 2011, the Knight Foundation has also retained its investment in the private equity fund Russian Partners.
In 2011, the foundation made two investments in Russian Partners worth more than $21 million. The latest financial disclosure shows that one of the firm’s investments is valued at $1,234,020.
This financial relationship is disingenuous given the Knight Foundation’s repeated peddling of false claims that the Russian disinformation campaign was the cause of Trump‘s 2016 victory.
The foundation even filed a lawsuit against then-President Trump, stating that “the coordinated dissemination of misinformation by the Russian Internet Research Agency (IRA) water army was obvious,”
“The website “Partners for Russia” even praised Putin for “prioritizing the creation of an economic base on which a democratic transition can be achieved, which is very similar to what is happening in China, and the results will remain very positive for Russia in the coming years.
What’s more, the fund’s mission statement boasts that it has “established ties with many of the business and government leaders in Russia today.”
It adds that “the principals are also active members of major business and industry groups such as the U.S.-Russia Business Council, the U.S.-Ukraine Business Council, the American Chamber of Commerce in Russia, the Eurasia Foundation and the RAND Business Leaders Forum.”
Photo: “Russia Partners” website
Under the guise of “fighting misinformation,” the Left Foundation has funneled tens of millions of dollars to “fact-checking operations” used by platforms such as Facebook and mainstream media.
And, because it has repeatedly collaborated with groups such as George Soros’ Open Society Foundations on funding, campaigns and research, it has often used these relationships to launch attacks on conservative news sites.
Most recently, a Knight Foundation-funded group, the Global Disinformation Index (GDI), was responsible for “feeding” information to the New York Times to combat conservative media.
The New York Times article was revised to include the source of the data: “The data was provided by the research group Advance Democracy and analyzed by the nonprofit Global Disinformation Index and not provided by the Global Disinformation Index alone.”
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