A spotlight in the UK has been shone on the Chinese Community Party’s (CCP) use of “united front” tactics to advance its political interests after reports that Yang Tengbo (楊騰波) — a resident of the UK for more than 20 years and an honorary member of the 48 Group Club, a UK-China friendship organization — had been involved with the CCP’s United Front Work Department.
It was reported last month that Yang, 50, was a close confidant of Britain’s Prince Andrew and had allegedly met two former British prime ministers. The story has drawn significant UK and international media attention for the way it seems to encapsulate the risks associated with maintaining open cultural and people-to-people exchanges with Chinese groups when the CCP so methodically targets them to advance its agenda, posing significant risks to civil society norms in liberal democracies.
The United Front Work Department was also in the news last month after a British Investigatory Powers Tribunal judgement ruled that MI5 — the UK’s domestic counterintelligence and security agency — had acted lawfully when in January 2022 it named Christine Lee, a British parliamentary lobbyist, as a threat to national security. Lee was found to have “knowingly engaged in political interference and activities” on behalf of the Chinese agency, arranging a donation of ￡584,177 (US$724,340) to then-British legislator Barry Gardiner and even receiving a reward from then-British prime minister Theresa May.
The challenge for liberal democracies is that it is difficult to discern sincere people-to-people exchanges from efforts directed by the CCP. There is no civil society in China to speak of, especially in the domain of international exchanges, with all organizations subsumed under the CCP. This has been turbocharged by Chinese President Xi Jinping’s (習近平) efforts to push “united front” work into a “new era.”
It is another example of how the CCP’s totalitarianism ultimately harms China, preventing Chinese from engaging with other nations on the basis of freedom and dignity. The CCP’s attempts at interference and manipulation do not bring China respect or admiration, only international backlash, which adversely affects Chinese, with restrictions on students, and academic and other exchanges having to be imposed to safeguard free societies.
The CCP preys on the openness and freedom of civil societies to manipulate public opinion, elections and people. As Mao Zedong (毛澤東) once said, the “united front” is the CCP’s “magic weapon” to undermine the West and advance the party’s interests.
However, it appears that many nations are waking up to these tactics. In the US, attention to the CCP’s actions has grown, such as the case of Linda Sun (孫雯), a former aide in the New York governor’s office who allegedly used her position to advance the CCP’s interests, including by blocking meetings between Taiwanese officials and state leaders, and removing references to Taiwan from state communications.
While Beijing’s “united front” operations have persisted for decades, democratic societies are growing more aware of its methods and less willing to tolerate such naked manipulation.
Eventually, the CCP oversteps the mark and its actions capture the public’s attention. This was seen with a YouTube documentary released by Pa Chiung (八炯) with Taiwanese rapper Chen Po-yuan (陳柏源) that showed how the CCP bribes Taiwanese influencers to make pro-China content.
In the UK, it was Yang’s connection to Prince Andrew that opened people’s eyes. As former British diplomat Charles Parton told the Unherd Web site, the prince has managed “to achieve since this row began five days ago what some of us have been urging for more than five years — getting a government to put threats from China at the top of the political agenda.”
It appears that the jig is up for the CCP.
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