China’s global campaign to win friends and influence policy has blossomed in a surprising place: Utah, a deeply religious and conservative state with few obvious ties to the world’s most powerful communist country.
An investigation by The Associated Press (AP) has found that China and its US-based advocates spent years building relationships with the state’s officials and lawmakers. Those efforts have paid dividends at home and abroad, the AP found: Lawmakers delayed legislation Beijing did not like, nixed resolutions that conveyed displeasure with its actions and expressed support in ways that enhanced the Chinese government’s image.
Its work in Utah is emblematic of a broader effort by Beijing to secure allies at the local level as its relations with the US and its western allies have turned acrimonious. US officials say that local leaders are at risk of being manipulated by China and have deemed the influence campaign a threat to national security.
Illustration: Yusha
Beijing’s success in Utah shows “how pervasive and persistent China has been in trying to influence America,” said Frank Montoya Jr, a retired FBI counterintelligence agent who lives in Utah.
“Utah is an important foothold,” he said. “If the Chinese can succeed in Salt Lake City, they can also make it in New York and elsewhere.”
Security experts say that China’s campaign is widespread and tailored to local communities.
In Utah, Beijing and pro-China advocates appealed to lawmakers’ affiliations with The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, better known as the Mormon church, which is the state’s dominant religion and one that has long dreamed of expanding in China.
Beijing’s campaign in Utah has raised concerns among state and federal lawmakers and drawn the attention of the US Department of Justice.
A state legislator said that he was interviewed by the FBI after introducing a resolution in 2020 expressing solidarity with China early in the COVID-19 pandemic. A Utah professor who has advocated for closer ties between Washington and Beijing said that he has been questioned by the FBI twice.
The FBI declined to comment.
Beijing’s interest in locally focused influence campaigns is not a secret. Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) said during a trip to the US in 2015 that “without successful cooperation at the subnational level it would be very difficult to achieve practical results for cooperation at the national level.”
A spokesman for the Chinese embassy in Washington said that China “values its relationship with Utah,” and any “words and deeds that stigmatize and smear these subnational exchanges are driven by ulterior political purposes.”
It is not unusual for countries, including the US, to engage in local diplomacy.
Although US officials and security experts have said that many Chinese language and cultural exchanges have no hidden agendas, they added that few nations have so aggressively courted local leaders in ways that raise national security concerns.
In its annual threat assessment released last month, the US intelligence community reported that China is “redoubling” its local influence campaigns in the face of stiffening resistance at the national level.
Beijing believes that “local officials are more pliable than their federal counterparts,” the report said.
The US National Counterintelligence and Security Center in July last year warned state and local officials about “deceptive and coercive” Chinese influence operations, and FBI Director Christopher Wray last year said that China was seeking to “cultivate talent early — often state and local officials — to ensure that politicians at all levels of government will be ready to take a call and advocate on behalf of Beijing’s agenda.”
Authorities in other countries, including Australia, Canada and the UK, have sounded similar alarms.
Those concerns have arisen amid escalating disputes between the US and China over trade, human rights, the future of Taiwan and China’s tacit support for Russia during its invasion of Ukraine. Tensions worsened last month when a suspected Chinese spy balloon was discovered and shot down in US airspace.
US officials have provided scant details about which states and localities the Chinese government has targeted. The AP focused its investigation on Utah because China appears to have cultivated a significant number of allies in the state and its advocates are well-known to lawmakers.
Relying on dozens of interviews with key players and the review of hundreds of pages of records, text messages and e-mails obtained through public records’ requests, the AP found that China won frequent legislative and public relations victories in Utah.
For example, China-friendly lawmakers delayed action for a year to ban Chinese-funded Confucius Institutes at state universities, the legislation’s sponsor said.
The Chinese language and cultural programs have been described by US national security officials as propaganda instruments. The University of Utah and Southern Utah University closed their institutes by last year.
In 2020, China scored an image-boosting coup when Xi sent a note to a class of Utah fourth-graders thanking them for cards they had sent wishing him a happy Chinese New Year. He encouraged them to “become young ‘ambassadors’ for Sino-American friendship.”
E-mails obtained by the AP showed that the Chinese embassy and the students’ Chinese teacher coordinated the letter exchange, which resulted in heavy coverage by state-controlled media in China.
A Chinese state media outlet reported that the Utah students jubilantly said: “Grandpa Xi really wrote back to me. He’s so cool.”
Portraying China’s most authoritarian leader in decades as a kindly grandfather is a familiar trope in Chinese propaganda.
Xi’s letter garnered positive attention in Utah, too. A Republican legislator said on the state senate floor that he “couldn’t help but think how amazing it was” that the Chinese leader took the time to write such a “remarkable” letter. Another Republican senator gushed on his conservative radio show that Xi’s letter “was so kind and so personal.”
Dakota Cary, a China expert at the security firm Krebs Stamos Group, said that in making such comments, Utah lawmakers are “essentially acting as mouthpieces for the Chinese Communist Party” (CCP) and legitimizing their ideas and narratives.
“Statements like these are exactly what China’s goal is for influence campaigns,” he said.
China’s interest in Utah is not limited to its officials and advocates who are engaged in diplomacy, trade and education. US officials have said that China’s civilian spy agency, the Chinese Ministry of State Security, has shown an interest in Utah, court records show.
In January, former graduate student Ji Chaoqun (紀超群) was sentenced to eight years in prison on charges related to spying for China. The Chicago student told an undercover agent he had been tasked by his spy handlers “to meet people, some American friends.”
He was baptized at a Latter-day Saints church and told the undercover agent he had “been going to Utah more often lately” before his arrest, his Facebook account and court records showed.
Ron Hansen, a former US intelligence official from Utah, pleaded guilty to trying to sell classified information to China.
Hansen said that China’s spy service had tasked him with assessing US politicians’ views toward China.
The FBI found the names of Utah elected officials among sensitive files he stored on his laptop, court records showed. Hansen was sentenced in 2019 to serve 10 years in federal prison.
Hansen was well known in Utah political circles and helped organize the first annual US-China National Governors Forum, which was held in 2011 in Salt Lake City, court records and interviews showed.
The US Department of State canceled the forums in 2020 due to concerns about Chinese influence efforts.
The AP found that groups of up to 25 Utah lawmakers routinely took trips to China every other year since 2007. Lawmakers have partially used campaign donations to pay for the trade missions and cultural exchanges, while relying on China and host organizations to pay for other expenses.
On the trips, they have forged relationships with government officials and were quoted in Chinese state-owned media in ways that support Beijing’s agenda.
“Utah is not like Washington, DC,” then-Utah House of Representatives speaker Greg Hughes, a vocal supporter of former US president Donald Trump, told the Chinese state media outlet in 2018 as the former president ratcheted up pressure on Beijing over trade. “Utah is a friend of China, an old friend with a long history.”
In an interview last month, Hughes said the trips to China made him “bullish” about the country and prospects of improving trade.
He said he now believes the visits were pretexts for Chinese officials to influence him and other lawmakers.
“It’s a trip not worth taking,” Hughes said.
Utah does not require public officials to report in detail their foreign travel or personal finances, so it is difficult to determine lawmaker’s financial ties to China.
However, some of Utah’s most pro-China legislators have China-related personal business connections.
Utah Senator Curt Bramble last year told Courthouse News Service that his role as a part-time legislator and as a business consultant sometimes overlap, and that he “had clients in China — a dozen at times — some of them on legislative tours, some on consulting.”
In an interview with the AP, Bramble said that none of his clients are based in China; they only do business there. He declined to name them.
Bramble, a Republican who represents a conservative district, also rejected fears of undue Chinese influence in Utah.
“China’s not going anywhere. China’s going to be a world force. They’re going to be a player for the foreseeable future and trying to understand what that implies for the United States or for the state of Utah and get a concept of that seems to be a valuable endeavor,” he said.
Many of the Utah-China ties have been forged by two state residents with links to the Chinese government or to organizations that experts say are alleged front groups for China, including its civilian spy agency.
The two men advocated for and against resolutions, set up meetings between Utah lawmakers and Chinese officials, accompanied legislators on trips to China and provided advice on the best way to cultivate favor with Beijing, e-mails and interviews showed.
In reviewing the AP’s findings, legal experts said the men’s connections with Chinese officials suggest that they should register with the justice department under the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA).
The law generally requires anyone who works on behalf of a foreign entity to influence lawmakers or public perception, but its scope is the subject of significant debate and enforcement has been uneven.
“If I were representing either of these individuals, I would have significant concerns about FARA exposure,” said Joshua Ian Rosenstein, an attorney who handles such matters.
One of the men, Le Taowen (樂桃文), has championed China to religious and political leaders in Utah for decades. Le, a Chinese citizen, moved to Utah in the 1980s and has been a professor of information technology at Weber State University since 1998. Le converted in 1990 to the Mormon faith.
From 2003 through 2017, Le had another job — as a paid representative of China’s Liaoning provincial government. Provincial governments are largely controlled by Beijing and Liaoning has had a longstanding “sister” relationship with Utah.
Le’s advocacy continued after he said he left Liaoning’s payroll, e-mails and interviews showed. He has frequently forwarded messages from Chinese government officials to Utah lawmakers and helped the Chinese embassy set up meetings with state officials.
After embassy officials tried unsuccessfully last year to have staff for Utah Governor Spencer Cox schedule a get-together with China’s ambassador to the US, Le sent the governor a personal plea to take the meeting.
“I still remember and cherish what you told me at the new year party held at your home,” Le wrote in a letter adorned with pictures of him and Cox posing together. “You told me that you trusted me to be a good messenger and friendship builder between Utah and China.”
Utah Senate President Stuart Adams turned to Le when the state was scrambling to obtain large quantities of drugs that Adams thought could be used as potential treatment against COVID-19 in early 2020, e-mails and interviews showed.
Le, who belongs to the same congregation as Adams, said in an e-mail to another lawmaker that he was able to get the Chinese embassy to assign two staffers to work “tirelessly” on the request until it was fulfilled.
A hallmark of Le’s approach is to utilize his religion in his pitches to lawmakers. He quoted scripture from the Bible and the Book of Mormon in his e-mails, text messages and letters, and sprinkled in positive comments that Russell Nelson, the church’s president, has made about China.
Chinese officials have tried to cultivate friendly ties with the church. When visiting Utah, China’s diplomats and officials often meet top church members as well as lawmakers, e-mails and other records showed.
Expanding to China has been a top goal for the church, which plays a heavy role in Utah politics and the state’s overall identity. Many of the state’s residents lived abroad as missionaries, and several of Utah’s public schools have robust K-12 Chinese immersion programs.
While the church has historically been an outspoken advocate for religious freedom, Le sought to stop Utah lawmakers from supporting religious figures or groups discriminated against by the Chinese government.
When a Utah lawmaker sponsored a resolution in 2021 condemning China’s well-documented and brutal crackdown of Uighurs, Le chastised the legislator in text messages and compared unflattering media coverage of the Chinese government to that of the church’s founder, Joseph Smith Jr.
“Pray to God and seek guidance from the Holy Spirit as you ponder about these issues instead of solely relying on those biased media reports,” Le said.
The resolution failed that year and a similar one introduced in January did not receive a hearing.
Le has served as a board member of the China Overseas Friendship Association, which has ties to the United Front Work Department — a CCP organization that the US government says engages in covert and malign foreign influence operations.
A united front publication profiled Le in 2020 after he attended a meeting in Beijing of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, a prestigious advisory body controlled by the CCP.
“I deeply feel the advantages of China’s system,” Le told the publication.
Le told the AP he was interviewed by the FBI in 2007 and 2018 about his Chinese government ties. He said his advocacy has always been self-directed.
“I don’t consider myself a lobbyist because I’m not a lobbyist. I’m just someone who cherishes the relationship between the US and China,” Le said in an interview in his Weber State office.
Adams said he feels otherwise.
“I do believe he’s lobbying,” Adams said. “He advocates very hard on China.”
Another Utah resident whom lawmakers said regularly has advocated better relations with China was Dan Stephenson, the son of a former state senator and employee of a China-based consulting firm.
E-mails and other records show that Stephenson advised the Utah senate president on how to make a good impression with a Chinese ambassador and assisted a Chinese province in its unsuccessful efforts to build a ceramics museum in Utah.
Stephenson has promoted China in Utah for several years and has boasted of being well connected with government officials there.
“I’ve heard more than once from the mouths of Chinese government officials that China is prioritizing their relationship with Utah,” Stephenson told lawmakers at a committee hearing.
That testimony came shortly after Stephenson accompanied Republican Utah Senator Jake Anderegg on a trip to Shanghai and Beijing that included meetings with officials at the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
A few months after that trip, Stephenson provided Anderegg with the draft language for a pro-China resolution the state senator introduced in 2020 expressing solidarity with China during the pandemic, Anderegg told the AP.
The resolution passed with near unanimous approval.
A Chinese diplomat’s efforts to win passage of a similar resolution in Wisconsin failed, with the state’s senate president publicly blasting it as a piece of propaganda.
Anderegg said that he was interviewed by FBI agents seeking information about the Utah resolution’s origins.
“It seemed rather innocuous to me,” Anderegg said of his resolution. “But maybe it wasn’t.”
Stephenson said the FBI has not contacted him and no Chinese government official played a role in the resolution.
Stephenson has links to Chinese groups allegedly involved in covert foreign influence operations, documents showed.
He is a partner in the Shanghai-based consulting firm Economic Bridge International. The company’s chief executive, William Wang, is a Chinese citizen and council member of the China Friendship Foundation for Peace and Development, an online biography for him showed. The group is affiliated with the CCP’s united front department.
Stephenson, also once worked for the China Academy of Painting, which has been used by the Ministry of State Security as a front for meeting and covertly influencing elites and officials abroad, said Alex Joske, the author of Spies and Lies: How China’s Greatest Covert Operations Fooled the World.
Stephenson said he worked only briefly — without pay — for the China Academy of Painting, adding that he did not witness any spy agency involvement.
He said he has never taken any action at the direction of the Chinese government and never accepted compensation from it.
“I work to promote Utah’s economy, to help American companies succeed in China, and to encourage healthy people-to-people and commercial ties,” Stephenson said.
His work sometimes aligned with what Chinese government officials were seeking and in ways experts say likely helped the CCP’s messaging.
Stephenson urged Utah’s elected officials to make videos to air on Shanghai television to boost the spirits of that city’s residents early in 2020 as they battled COVID-19, e-mails obtained by the AP showed.
“You cannot buy this type of positive publicity for Utah in China,” Stephenson said in an e-mail pitching the videos.
The request originated with the Shanghai government, according to Stephenson’s e-mail, and came as officials in China were scrambling to tamp down public fury at communist authorities for reprimanding a young doctor, who later died, over his repeated warnings about the disease’s dangers.
Many lawmakers recorded videos reading sample scripts Stephenson provided, and a compilation of those videos was uploaded to a Chinese social media Web site.
The compilation ends with dozens of lawmakers in unison shouting “jiayou” (加油) — a Mandarin expression of encouragement — on the Utah house and senate floors.
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