In his books Silent Invasion: China’s influence in Australia and Hidden Hand: Exposing How The Chinese Communist Party Is Reshaping The World (co-written with Mareike Ohlberg, Australian academic Clive Hamilton exposes, “the Chinese Communist Party’s global program of influence and subversion, and the threat it poses to democracy”. Hamilton and Ohlberg write that the authoritarian communist regime is “using democracy to undermine democracy”.

No small part of the communist giant’s success to date has been that it has been able to rely on useful idiots in politics, business, universities, think tanks and international institutions such as the UN. Sometimes its puppets have been ideological fellow-travellers, more often they’re just blinded by unprincipled greed.

This is especially true of two particular institutions: the media and the scientific community.

In the case of science, the CCP has a specific program, the “Thousand Talents Program”, to subvert top scientific and specialized experts from around the world. Just one example of how the complicity of the scientific establishment has already led to disaster is Dr. Anthony Fauci’s NIH clandestinely funnelling money to research that almost certainly unleashed the Covid pandemic

Another comes from the bastion of American elitism, Harvard.

The former chair of Harvard University’s Chemistry Department accused of hiding Chinese ties had admitted to taking tens of thousands of dollars from China, video footage presented in federal court on Dec. 17 shows.

Like the Western scientists charged with investigating the origin of the Wuhan virus, nanoscientist Charles Lieber just kind of “forgot” about carrying home suitcases full of cash from China.

Lieber said he likely made no more than six trips to China around 2012 and was paid between $10,000 and $20,000 each time he made the trip, according to local media reports. He had spent the money—a total that he estimated to be between $50,000 and $100,000—on groceries and living expenses, such as housekeeping.

The payments were in $100 bills that Lieber brought back in his luggage, he said. He didn’t declare them at customs nor did he pay any taxes on the money.

“If I brought it back, I didn’t declare it, and that’s illegal,” he told the FBI agents.

In the recording, Lieber repeatedly said he couldn’t recall the precise amount of money he had received from Wuhan University, blaming the lapses on his “selective memory,” according to local media outlets.

We should all be flush enough to forget where all those bags of cash came from.

And, as we are finding far too often, all Belts and Roads of sneaky Chinese money in the US lead back to Fauci.

Since 2008, the Lieber Research Group at Harvard University, which had been led by Lieber, has received more than $15 million in funding from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the Department of Defense.

Lieber was a contractual participant of the Thousand Talents Plan between at least 2012 and 2017, a court document shows.

He also has something of a gift for understatement.

Lieber said it looked like he had been “very dishonest”.

The Epoch Times

But there’s “very dishonest” and then there’s the media.

A Washington, D.C., radio station took $4.4 million from the Chinese Communist Party over the past two years to broadcast propaganda, according to a report from the Washington Free Beacon.

The radio station WCRW-AM aired content from China Global Television Network and several talk shows that portray China in a positive light as part of a deal its parent company, Potomac Media Group, struck with the CCP.

It wasn’t just the occasional pro-China spot, either: some 60% of the station’s airtime was leased by a subsidiary of China Radio International. And not content with just parroting Chinese propaganda, they had the CCP vetting their material.

The Free Beacon reported that Potomac Media’s filing details how the International Communication Planning Bureau, an arm of China’s propaganda ministry, is permitted to review broadcasts and verify programming aired on WCRW. Potomac Media is contractually obligated to provide the Planning Bureau with reports on audience reach, feedback, and “evaluation from international organizations.”

The Blaze

Far from a recent development, WCRW has reportedly been playing Beijing Rose since 1992. It has only now registered as a foreign agent with the Justice Department. At the same time, the US government is tightening enforcement of foreign agent laws.

It remains to be seen how many more China apologists in the US media get shaken out by the crackdown.

Punk rock philosopher. Liberalist contrarian. Grumpy old bastard. I grew up in a generational-Labor-voting family. I kept the faith long after the political left had abandoned it. In the last decade...