A distinguished group of China specialists who have long championed engagement with Beijing are now advocating the United States take a more skeptical view of what they see as growing Chinese efforts to undermine democratic values, including free-speech rights, both here and abroad.
“Except for Russia, no other country’s efforts to influence American politics and society is as extensive and well-funded as China’s,” the specialists say in a report to be issued Thursday by a working group convened by the Hoover Institution and the Asia Society’s Center on U.S.-China Relations.
The report finds that though the Chinese are trying to shape the agenda of U.S. think tanks, the institutions are “very resilient” in resisting. “There’s very little evidence that the Chinese are successful when they’re trying to shape think-tank scholars’ writing on China,” said Economy, director of Asia studies at the Council on Foreign Relations.
For years the Chinese have been working to gain access to US think tanks, both through legitimate funding as well as through more nefarious methods such as cyber attacks.
Update: Here is the report cited in the above-mentioned article (and full PDF version). Here is the section specifically on think tanks. 33 scholars from think tanks, universities, foundations, and the media were part of the working group that provided input for the report.
Chinese money is flowing to both think tanks and universities.
