Georgetown University, an Ivy League school, recently released its “China Talent Program Tracker” database, exposing the scale of the Chinese Communist Party’s systematic theft of U.S. intellectual property, but Georgetown University, which released the report, has itself come under scrutiny for a suspicious $10 million grant.
Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., is not only a venerable Ivy League school, but also a “revolving door” for senior U.S. national intelligence officials, with a long history of promoting dialogue among people of different faiths, cultures and nations, according to The Washington Post.
In 2016, a new Initiative for U.S.-China Dialogue on Global Issues opened at Georgetown University. The CP Group, a Thai company, provided a $10 million gift to support it. The Thai company has extensive ties not only to official Communist Party officials, but also to specific organizations operating under Communist Party influence overseas. Georgetown University has insisted that the Spring Breeze Foundation, funded by the Bangkok-based CP Group, does not limit the program’s academic independence, although the university has refused to make the funding contract public.
In an October report, the U.S. Department of Education said the CP Group “has established ties with the Chinese government through multibillion-dollar agreements. However, the report does not explain how the CP Group is directly involved in the CCP’s efforts to exert influence overseas. The overseas influence is part of a massive coordinated campaign by the CCP’s United Front Work Department, described in the words of “Mao Thought” as “uniting friends within the Party and overthrowing hostile forces.
Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-Wis.), who earned his doctorate at Georgetown University, sent a letter to U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos on Nov. 30 detailing the relationship between CP Group executives and the Communist Party’s United Front Work Department. For example, CP Group’s longtime senior chairman, Chinese-Thai billionaire Dhanin Chearavanont, was honored by a United Front Work group called the China Overseas Friendship Association at a conference in Beijing last year, where he sat with Communist Party President Xi Jinping. He was also sitting with Communist Party President Xi Jinping.
CP Group Vice Chairman Yang Xiaoping, who signed the donation letter to Georgetown University, is a member of the board of directors of CITIC Limited, a major subsidiary of China’s large state-owned CITIC Group. Yang was also a member of the National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference and a member of the Standing Committee of the China International Exchange Association, part of the Communist Party’s International Liaison Department.
Gallagher wrote, “Large donations from foreign entities with obvious ties to the CCP, needless to say historical ties to the regime, require careful scrutiny by the Ministry of Education.” “This gift is of particular concern because the ‘U.S.-China Global Issues Dialogue Initiative’ employs former senior U.S. state officials who play important roles in U.S. policy toward China.”
The senior official Gallagher is referring to is Dennis Wilder, managing director of the Georgetown Dialogue initiative, who served on President Bush’s National Security Council and as senior editor of the President’s Daily Briefing for the leading U.S. intelligence agency. Wilder served as the senior Asia officer for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) during Obama’s last two years in office.
Since becoming managing director of the Georgetown Dialogue, Wilder has appeared regularly in official Chinese media to promote smooth U.S.-China relations and criticize the Trump administration’s hard-line approach to the Communist Party. For unspecified reasons, he has been on leave for several months and did not respond to several requests for comment.
“The Georgetown Dialogue has also hired as a senior fellow Evan Medieros, the top official for Asia at the National Security Council during the Obama administration, who has written articles harshly critical of the Chinese Communist government, particularly this year. Especially this year. Unlike Wilder, he has not used his platform to promote a Beijing-friendly line, but his past work for the Obama National Security Council is seen as a reluctance to confront the Communist Party, and Chinese hawks remain skeptical of him.
Gallagher’s letter said the CP group’s funding raises concerns that the CCP may be using proxies to add to the “revolving door” between the public and private sectors, making it more inclined to promote U.S. cooperation with the brutal dictatorship than to take decisive action to restrain it.
Recent Comments