Twitter Worked With Think Tank to Delete Accounts Tied to Chinese Gov't

Here is more from CNN:

Twitter announced Thursday that it had shut down more than 170,000 accounts tied to the Chinese government. Experts working with Twitter who reviewed the accounts said they pushed deceptive narratives around the Hong Kong protests, COVID-19, and other topics.

The company said the accounts were "spreading geopolitical narratives favorable to the Communist Party of China" and were removed for violating its platform manipulation policies.

Twitter is officially blocked in China, though many people in the country are able to access it using a VPN. Among the targets of the Chinese campaign were overseas Chinese "in an effort to exploit their capacity to extend the party-state's influence," according to the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, a group Twitter worked with to analyze the accounts. Twitter said the accounts tweeted "predominantly in Chinese languages."

On June 12, the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) issued a report analyzing what is says is a "persistent, large-scale influence campaign linked to Chinese state actors" on Twitter and Facebook.

At the end of the report, it notes that ASPI's work is supported by defense contractors Lockheed Martin, Thales, and Naval Group (although it is unclear if those were the entities that supported this specific research).

Other ASPI donors include Northrop Grumman, Jacobs, MBDA, SAAB, Raytheon Australia, and Austal.  It also receives money from the US State Department.

Sponsors to the think tank's International Cyber Policy Centre (ICPC) include Microsoft, Amazon, Google, National Archives of Australia (NAA), and the Cyber Security Cooperative Research Centre (CSCRC).

A larger list of funders, which include the Embassy of Japan and Taipei Economic and Cultural Office (TECRO), can be found in its most recent annual report here.

The Global Times, published by the People's Daily, the official newspaper of China's ruling Communist Party, recently slammed ASPI for "hyping up anti-China issues."

In March, ASPI said it has one of the largest concentrations of Chinese-language speakers in any think tank in Australia.

In February, the Australian Financial Review said ASPI has "become a flashpoint in the breakdown of consensus in Beijing."

Canberra-headquartered ASPI was founded in 2001 and has a staff of 55 in full-time, part-time, and "casual" positions.

Think Tankers Divide Themselves on China and Trump

Here is more from Reuters:

Scores of Asia specialists, including former U.S. diplomats and military officers, want President Donald Trump to rethink policies that “treat China as an enemy,” warning the approach could hurt U.S. interests and the global economy, according to a draft open letter reviewed by Reuters on Saturday.

The letter recently appeared in the Washington Post.  Signatories from the think tank world include:

• James Acton, co-director, Nuclear Policy Program and Jessica T. Mathews Chair, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
• Andrew Bacevich, co-founder, Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft
• Jeffrey A. Bader, former senior director for East Asia on National Security Council 2009-2011 and fellow, Brookings Institution
• C. Fred Bergsten, senior fellow and director emeritus, Peterson Institute for International Economics
• Richard Bush, Chen-Fu and Cecilia Yen Koo Chair in Taiwan Studies, Brookings Institution
• Toby Dalton, co-director, Nuclear Policy Program, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
• Robert Daly, director, Kissinger Institute on China and the U.S., Wilson Center
• David Dollar, senior fellow, Brookings Institution
• Robert Einhorn, senior fellow, Brookings Institution; former assistant secretary of state for nonproliferation, 1999-2001
• David F. Gordon, senior advisor, International Institute of Strategic Studies; former director of Policy Planning at the U.S. State Department, 2007-2009
• Philip H. Gordon, Mary and David Boies Senior Fellow in U.S. Foreign Policy at the Council on Foreign Relations
• Lee Hamilton, former congressman; former president and director of the Wilson Center
• Yukon Huang, senior fellow, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
• Marvin Kalb, nonresident senior fellow, Brookings Institution
• Charles Kupchan, professor of International Affairs, Georgetown University; senior fellow, Council on Foreign Relations
• Nicholas Lardy, Anthony M. Solomon Senior Fellow, Peterson Institute for International Economics
• Chung Min Lee, senior fellow, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
• Cheng Li, director and senior fellow, John L. Thornton China Center, The Brookings Institution
• Jessica Mathews, distinguished fellow, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
• Alice Lyman Miller, research fellow, Hoover Institution, Stanford University
• Moises Naim, distinguished fellow, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
• Douglas Paal, distinguished fellow, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
• Jonathan D. Pollack, nonresident senior fellow, John L. Thornton China Center, Brookings Institution
• Richard Sokolsky, nonresident senior fellow, Russia and Eurasia Program, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
• Graham Webster, coordinating editor, Stanford-New America DigiChina Project

In response, an open letter was written by China scholars who support President Trump's China policy.  Here is more from Free Beacon:

An open letter to President Trump urged the president to stay the course on dealing with the Chinese government, which the letter states is in opposition to the values and strategic interests of the United States.

The letter was written by retired Navy Captain James E. Fanell, a former director of Intelligence and Information Operations for the U.S. Pacific Fleet. The letter is a response to an open letter published by the Washington Post on July 3 titled "China is not an enemy."

Fanell's letter has 130 signatories, including veterans and former U.S. military officials, scholars and professors, think tank members, and other China watchers.

Think tankers who have signed that letter include Ian Easton and Mark Stokes of Project 2049 Institute, Frank Gaffney of the Center for Security Policy, and John Tkacik of the International Assessment and Strategy Center.

US Think Tank Scholars Blocked From Entering China

Almost everyone has heard of the ongoing US-China trade war but few have noticed a much quieter war taking place: a US-China think tank war.  Here is the latest from the New York Times:

An American scholar who has advised President Trump on China said late Wednesday that he was not given a visa he sought to attend a recent conference in Beijing, in what he called apparent retaliation for American restrictions on visas for visiting Chinese scholars.

The scholar, Michael Pillsbury, director for Chinese strategy at the Hudson Institute, a conservative think tank in Washington, said he applied for a visa with the Chinese Embassy in Washington on March 22 but failed to get approval to attend the conference last Sunday, which was organized by a research institute in Beijing.

The host of the conference in Beijing was the Center for China and Globalization. Mr. Pillsbury, citing Chinese associates, said that the conference had also invited Wendy Cutler, a former United States trade official, but that she had also failed to get a visa. Ms. Cutler could not be reached for comment late Wednesday night.

Mr. Pillsbury said that when he raised the issue with a Chinese Communist Party official he knows, the official pointed to a recent New York Times article that said counterintelligence officials at the F.B.I. had been canceling the long-term visas of some Chinese scholars.

Mr. Pillsbury said he took that to imply that his visa application had been stymied in reprisal for the new restrictions.

The New York Times recently reported that the FBI has barred around 30 Chinese scholars from entering the US.

Here is a link to other people, including scholars from the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), Asia Foundation, Heritage Foundation, and Cato Institute, who were supposed to attend the event in China.

Here is a previous Think Tank Watch piece about Michael Pillsbury, President Trump's "go-to" China scholar.

Calls are now being made for a ceasefire in the "visa war."

China's Communist Party Funds DC Think Tanks?

Here is more from Bill Gertz of the Washington Free Beacon:

China's Communist Party is intensifying covert influence operations in the United States that include funding Washington think tanks and coercing Chinese Americans, according to a congressional commission report.

The influence operations are conducted by the United Front Work Department, a Central Committee organ that employs tens of thousands of operatives who seek to use both overt and covert operations to promote Communist Party policies.

The Party's United Front strategy includes paying several Washington think tanks with the goal influencing their actions and adopting positions that support Beijing's policies.

The report said the Johns Hopkins School of Advance International Studies, a major foreign policy education and analysis institute, has received funding from Tung Chee-hwa, a vice chairman of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, the party group that directs the United Front Work Department and includes a member of the Politburo Standing Committee, the collective dictatorship that rules China.

The funding for Johns Hopkins came from Tung's non-profit group in Hong Kong, the China-U.S. Exchange Foundation, which is a registered Chinese agent.

In addition to Johns Hopkins, other think tanks linked to China and influential in American policy circles include the Brookings Institution, Atlantic Council, Center for American Progress, EastWest Institute, Carter Center, and the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

Here is a previous Think Tank Watch post about Tung Chee-hwa.

Here is a recent Think Tank Watch post about a crackdown at Chinese think tank Unirule.

Here is a post entitled "China Daily Recruiting US Think Tankers to Influence China Policy?"

Will President Donald Trump ban Chinese think tanks in the US?

China has been targeting US think tanks doing military research.

Also, Chinese spies have been posing as think tankers to acquire information.

Meanwhile, the Chinese government has been seeking advice from US think tanks about how to deal with Trump.

Think Tankers Secretly Pushed for Taiwan Call With Trump

Asia advisers to President-elect Donald Trump apparently were behind Mr. Trump's phone call with Taiwan's leader Tsai Ing-wen.

Alexander Gray, Peter Navarro, and Stephen Yates were whispered to be the drivers behind the call, according to several insiders close to the Trump transition team.

Stephen Yates, CEO of D.C. International Advisory (DCIA), previously served as a Senior Policy Analyst at the Heritage Foundation.  Several sources say Yates was behind the call, but he has denied it.  Yates reportedly wrote much of the China/Taiwan portion of the Republican Party platform.

The Heritage Foundation has very close ties to Taiwan, and Ed Fuelner, the former President of that think tank (and current adviser to the Trump transition team), is said to have cultivated extensive ties with Taiwan for decades. [Fuelner actually took a group from his think tank and met with Tsai Ing-wen in October 2016, and is said to have been a "crucial figure" is setting up communications channels between the two sides.]

Here is the Heritage Foundation's most current thinking on Taiwan.  Last month the think tank held an event on US-Taiwan relations in the new administration (video here).

Walter Lohman, Director of the Heritage Foundation's Asia Studies Center, said that the Trump-Tsai call is a "good start" to reforming US-Taiwan relations.

Lohman told Politico today that Heritage has received money for 30 years from three Taiwanese companies, although he declined to name them.  Politico noted that Taiwan has also given money to American Enterprise Institute (AEI) and the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS).  However, an AEI spokesman said the think tank no longer accepts foreign donations.

Mr. Gray was a Policy Analyst at the Bipartisan Policy Center (BPC) from 2011-2013, and also participated in the CSIS-Pacific Forum Young Leaders Program in 2014 and the Foreign Policy Initiative (FPI) Future Leaders Program 2014-2015.

The phone call was reportedly arranged by Bob Dole, Special Counsel at the law firm of Alston & Bird LLP and Co-founder of BPC.

Dr. Navarro,a professor at the University of California-Irvine, is not tied directly to any think tanks but writes extensively about China and Taiwan.  Here is a Navarro piece from July 2016 entitled "America Can't Dump Taiwan."

Here is a recent Foreign Policy piece by Gray and Navarro entitled "Donald Trump's Peace Through Strength Vision for the Asia Pacific."

Think Tank Watch should note that other conservative think tanks have also been supportive of Trump's seemingly new Asia policy.  Michael Pillsbury, Senior Fellow and Director of the Center for Chinese Strategy at the Hudson Institute, said he admires Trump's writing and campaign speeches about how to negotiate with China.

Dan Blumenthal, Director of Asian Studies and Resident Fellow AEI, and Randall Shriver, President and CEO of the Project 2049 Institute, said that Trump's Taiwan call was a step toward balanced relations.

The call comes as Taiwan has begun to ramp up its lobbying and think tank efforts in Washington, DC the past year, and the incoming Trump Administration should be a big boon to new Taiwan-funded think tanks such as the Global Taiwan Institute (GTI).

One thing is for sure: Asia hands from think tanks who supported Hillary Clinton should have their hands full as they work to figure out how to handle the new administration.