THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
By Brian Spegele
June 23, 2020
Soon after Donald Trump took office, people with ties to the Chinese state poured hundreds of thousands of dollars into his re-election bid to get close to and potentially influence the new president.
The effort had early success in gaining access for those involved, helping them meet the president or top Republicans at fundraisers or at an internal GOP leadership meeting. It reveals how China seeks to build inroads into U.S. politics, gather information on U.S. leaders and if possible affect policy-making.
Several of those involved worked closely with China’s national-security apparatus, including organizations linked to its military, and briefed prominent Chinese political figures about their efforts.
As guests of a Republican official named Shawn Steel, Chinese nationals, including a man working for China’s central government, attended an invitation-only gathering in May 2017 where GOP leaders discussed campaign strategies and other issues.
In response to inquiries, the Republican National Committee said it had instructed Mr. Steel to break ties with several people identified in Wall Street Journal reporting.
“It’s important to do all we can to safeguard our politics from illegal foreign meddling,” the RNC said in response to questions. It said it wouldn’t return donations identified by the Journal that facilitated access to the president and other officials because it didn’t believe campaign-finance laws were broken.
Separately, Mr. Steel, a Republican national committeeman from California, said it would be “false, defamatory, and offensive” to say he aided any Chinese efforts. He didn’t respond to specific questions.
There is no indication Mr. Trump was aware of the political contributions. The White House didn’t respond to requests for comment.
The Journal pieced together details of the efforts from campaign-finance records, Chinese government websites and U.S. corporate filings as well as through interviews with people involved. It couldn’t be determined whether any of the contributions or other activities violated U.S. laws. Federal law prohibits political giving by people who aren’t U.S. citizens or permanent residents.
The initial effort to access the Trump administration appears to have stalled as tensions between the U.S. and China have grown, first over trade and now over the Covid-19 pandemic. Relations between the two countries are at a low point, and criticizing China has become a political staple for Mr. Trump.
U.S. officials said China, which has historically stepped up efforts to influence U.S. politics when it feels challenged, recently intensified efforts to push misinformation through social media and other channels. China has long denied meddling in other countries’ affairs.
Most of the political donations identified by the Journal flowed to a fundraising committee called Trump Victory in the first half of the Trump presidency. The donations were among the largest of 2017, as the young administration was planning its China policy. The money accounts for just a fraction of the more than $190 million the committee has raised since Mr. Trump took office.
Chinese nationals involved said they weren’t acting on behalf of China’s government but sought to get close to Mr. Trump for personal reasons or to help them in business. China’s government didn’t respond to requests for comment, nor did China’s Embassy in Washington.
Unlike his Democratic rival Hillary Clinton, whose positions on international issues were well known from her time as secretary of state, Mr. Trump entered office as an unknown quantity to China whom its leaders urgently needed to understand.
The Journal also examined campaign-finance records for Mrs. Clinton’s candidacy and for the presumptive 2020 Democratic nominee, Joe Biden. It didn’t find similar efforts involving the two by people linked to China’s government.
Chinese money has allegedly flowed to Democrats previously, including to President Bill Clinton’s 1996 re-election effort, which led to guilty pleas by Democratic fundraisers for election-law violations and other crimes.
Soon after the 2016 election, officials from China’s consulate in Los Angeles approached a pro-Trump organizer named David Tian Wang, said people who worked with him. A native of China with a U.S. green card, Mr. Wang had founded a group called Chinese Americans for Trump and had long associations with people and groups in California supported by China’s government, according to Chinese official websites and state media.
The Chinese consulate asked for Mr. Wang’s help in lobbying on China issues during the Trump administration, said Lance Chen, a former member of Mr. Wang’s political group. Mr. Chen said Mr. Wang tried to recruit him for the lobbying effort but he declined to help.
Mr. Wang was soon listed as chief executive of a newly registered government-relations firm in California, Wang & Ma Government Relations LLC, state business records show. He also gave $150,000 to the Trump Victory fundraising committee, according to Federal Election Commission disclosures.
He became a frequent presence in Republican circles. In one case, Mr. Wang was quoted in Chinese-language media in the U.S. as saying he used access to the Trump campaign to push a view that U.S. military deployments in the contested South China Sea were a waste of money.
Lobbyists for foreign governments are required to register with the Justice Department. Mr. Wang’s name doesn’t appear in the department’s foreign-agents database.
Mr. Wang didn’t answer most specific questions from the Journal but said in a text message: “I have NO ties to the Chinese government and do not take orders from anyone.” He added that he loved China and the U.S. and believed in the Republican Party’s platform.
In May 2017, Mr. Wang attended a Republican National Committee invitation-only leadership meeting in San Diego as a guest of Mr. Steel, the California committeeman, people familiar with the matter said. The gathering was an early chance for Republican leaders to plan the path forward for the party after Mr. Trump’s inauguration.
Accompanying Mr. Wang to the meeting as Mr. Steel’s guests were three men linked to China’s government. The first was Zhao Gang, whom Chinese official websites identify as a researcher for China’s Ministry of Science and Technology focused on national security, tech diplomacy and other issues. Mr. Zhao’s work has connected him with the senior echelons of China’s Communist Party, including a close associate of President Xi Jinping, say people who have met Mr. Zhao.
Another was Tang Ben, a China-born U.S. citizen who served as an executive-committee member at the China Strategic Culture Promotion Association, an opaque group that state media have said advises China’s leaders on security issues. Its secretary-general, retired Maj. Gen. Luo Yuan, is well-known to U.S. officials for his hawkish posture toward the U.S.
The third was Li Su, a government-connected businessman who has worked closely with a well-known former associate of China’s vice president.
The presence of Messrs. Zhao and Li at the GOP leadership event was unusual because federal election rules don’t permit foreign nationals to play any role in decision making at U.S. political committees.
Mr. Zhao said that his participation was out of “academic interest” and that China’s government provided no funding for it. Mr. Li also said he was there in a personal capacity.
The three men had appeared at events together in China before. In September 2016, Messrs. Zhao, Tang and Li participated in a closed-door meeting billed as a U.S.-China security dialogue. They were part of a Chinese delegation that included a hard-line military strategist and a leader of a research center controlled by China’s military, according to an event program. An older man wearing a Mao suit led the Chinese side, who participants were told was a personal adviser to President Xi.
U.S. participants included Michael Breen, then-CEO of the center-left Truman National Security Project, and a former Defense Intelligence Agency officer named Welton Chang. They said that throughout the three-hour meeting, Chinese participants voiced hope an election win by Mr. Trump might lead to U.S. retrenchment in the Asia-Pacific region.
Both American participants said they worried the event was designed to let Chinese intelligence get to know them. Mr. Chang said he reported the encounter to U.S. intelligence.
The RNC said the men who attended the Republican Party meeting in San Diego didn’t have any meaningful interaction with GOP leaders there. However, it said, it has barred them from future RNC events.
The committee also said it now has tightened its policy on guests at such meetings, effectively excluding foreign nationals, and it has cut ties with Mr. Wang, the founder of Chinese Americans for Trump.
Mr. Steel said he doesn’t “collect money from, nor have received any funds from” Messrs. Zhao, Tang, Li or Wang. Mr. Steel didn’t answer a question about why they were there as his guests.
The Federal Election Commission declined to comment on the men’s attendance at the Republican meeting, citing “potential for this matter to come before the Commission in an enforcement capacity.”
Following the San Diego meeting, Messrs. Zhao, Tang and Li briefed a group of Chinese political figures in China, including retired Gen. Luo, on their access to top Republicans, according to a video of the event. Mr. Li said Mr. Trump’s election could prove a win for China, according to the video.
In June 2017, Trump Victory received a combined $300,000 from Mr. Tang and his wife. The donations allowed Mr. Tang to attend a fundraiser at Washington’s Trump International Hotel, where he led Chinese guests to meet the president. The contributions by the Tangs, who FEC records show hadn’t previously given to Mr. Trump, were two of the biggest donations Trump Victory received in 2017.
Mr. Tang described the visit in a Chinese newspaper commentary as grass-roots diplomacy for China. Interacting with the president “can help find a breakthrough in freeing up the U.S.-China technology trade,” he wrote.
On a Chinese social-media account, he posted photos of himself in the White House. “If the Chinese people wish to overtake the U.S., they must study the U.S.,” Mr. Tang wrote.
Reached on a Chinese cellphone number, Mr. Tang hung up when told the caller was a reporter. Earlier, his wife said in a brief interview that her husband spent most of his time in China and that she wasn’t familiar with any political donations.
Accompanying Mr. Tang at the 2017 fundraiser, the RNC confirmed, was Mr. Zhao from the Chinese Ministry of Science and Technology, plus the chairman of a state-backed Chinese producer of military communications and satellite equipment, Huaxun Fangzhou Co.
The executive, Wu Guangsheng, told Mr. Trump that Chinese technology companies were eager to invest in the U.S., according to an account on the website of Huaxun’s parent company.
It said that shortly before his Washington visit, Mr. Wu attended a meeting in Beijing with the then-head of the United Front Work Department, a Communist Party agency that seeks to shape global politics in China’s favor.
Mr. Wu’s company said he wasn’t aware the event was a fundraiser when invited. It said he sought to open doors to pursue U.S. business.
(Aruna Viswanatha, Caitlin Ostroff and Lisa Schwartz contributed to this article).
Write to Brian Spegele at brian.spegele@wsj.com
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China-backed Hackers Target Biden Campaign in Early Sign of 2020 Election Interference
By Ping Zhang
June 15, 2020 09:52 PM
WASHINGTON - Google announced earlier this month that Chinese-backed hackers were observed targeting former Vice President Joe Biden's campaign staff.
The internet giant said that hackers did not appear to compromise the campaign’s security, but the surveillance was a reminder of Russia’s interference in the 2016 election.
Analysts say China’s primary motive for breaking into a campaign is to collect intelligence such as Biden’s proposals for U.S. policy on China, although hackers could later try to use stolen intelligence to interfere in the campaign itself.
APT31
Shane Huntley, director of Google’s Threat Analysis Group twittered on June 4 that the company has discovered a “China APT group targeting Biden campaign staff with phishing,” but there was "no sign of compromise.”
The group Google discovered is called APT31. APT is an acronym for “advanced persistent threat” usually from a group that has the backing of, and direction from, an established nation state. According to ZDNet, a tech trade publication, APT31 “also known as Zirconium, is a Chinese state-sponsored hacking group that has been active since at least early 2016, and has historically targeted foreign companies to steal intellectual property, however, it has also targeted diplomatic entities in the past.” “This group, APT31 that we've tracked for awhile, [is] a group that we've seen involved in what we believe is strategic intelligence collection for things of interest to the Chinese government,” said Luke McNamara, a principal analyst with cybersecurity firm FireEye Intelligence.
Biden’s campaign issued a statement that it has “known from the beginning that the campaign would be subject to such attacks” and the campaign will ensure that its assets are secure.
“Google’s announcement shows that secure, resilient elections are much bigger than state and local, or even federal government efforts. The private sector has a key role, as does the American voter,” the official said in an email response.
Spying or interfering?
This is not the first time that Chinese hackers have been accused of targeting a U.S. presidential campaign team.
During the 2008 presidential election campaign, a group of hackers believed to be supported by the Chinese government was accused of hacking into the campaign teams of Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama and his Republican rival John McCain, obtaining email correspondence and internal documents that included the candidates’ positions on China. James Lewis, director of the Technology Policy Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), said that by breaking into a campaign, a hacker could learn valuable information such as the candidate’s strategies and personal network of friends and colleagues.
“In fact, I know the Biden campaign is writing position papers on how to deal with China. Getting access to that would be invaluable for Beijing. And that's the primary motive,” he told VOA.
“Will they go beyond that and actually try and interfere in the campaign the way the Russians have?” Lewis said. “I don't know. But collect intelligence. Yes. Interfere in the campaign. Maybe.”
Cybersecurity experts say whether ACT31 is intelligence gathering or engaging in political interference depends on how the hackers use the stolen information.
U.S. intelligence agencies found that during the 2016 presidential election cycle, Russians successfully hacked into the email box of the campaign manager for Democratic contender Hillary Clinton, using a “phishing” strategy. The hackers then went ahead and exposed tens of thousands of stolen emails via WikiLeaks. Many political observers believe those emails undermined Clinton’s campaign, contributing to her loss in the 2016 election.
Information operations
Apart from hacking, foreign forces also use social media to spread misinformation that can mislead people or exacerbate political divisions among voters. This is referred to as “information operations” in the intelligence community. Chinese officials are increasingly taking advantage of social media platforms that are banned in China, such as Twitter and Facebook, to conduct information operations overseas.
Michael Daniel, the president and CEO of Cyber Threat Alliance, an independent group of cyber security advisers, told VOA Mandarin he expects China to use information operations to promote policies and politicians that would seem more friendly to China.
“That's very different than trying to disrupt the electoral process and have us wonder who actually won a particular race,” he told VOA Mandarin.
FireEye’s McNamara agreed. He added that China has been building its capability of employing information operations, and whether it will use it to interfere the U.S. election is one of the things to look for in the future.
Yet CSIS’s Lewis offered a more concerning perspective. He said that in the past few years, China has taken a much more overtly political campaign in Australia, Taiwan, Canada and some Southeast Asian countries.
“China is using all the tools it has to interfere with politics there. And I think they're experimenting with a good way to do this in the U.S.,” he said. “I think the Chinese have decided they need to get into this game of political interference.”
China has been repeatedly accused of attempting to influence the American elections. A Senate investigation in 1998 revealed that the Chinese government had illegally donated to the Democratic Party in the 1996 presidential election.
The U.S. National Intelligence Agency reported China tried to spread misinformation in the 2018 midterm elections. Chinese officials have repeatedly denied that Beijing any intention of interfering with the internal affairs of other countries, and in April, Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesman Geng Shuang told reporters during a daily briefing, “The U.S. presidential election is an internal affair, we have no interest in interfering in it.”
Lin Yang contributed to this report.
