TRUMP ON CHINA • PUTTING AMERICA FIRST
The CCP has long used public threats of retaliation and barred market access to exert influence. More recently, however, the CCP has also stepped up behind-the-scenes efforts to cultivate and coerce American business executives to further its political objectives—efforts that are all the more pernicious because they are largely hidden from public view.
As China’s government loses credibility around the world, the Justice Department has seen more and more PRC officials and their proxies reaching out to corporate leaders and inveighing them to favor policies and actions favored by the Chinese Communist Party. Their objective varies, but their pitch is generally the same: the businessperson has economic interests in China, and there is a suggestion that things will go better (or worse) for them depending on their response to the PRC’s request. Privately pressuring or courting American corporate leaders to promote policies (or U.S. politicians) presents a significant threat, because hiding behind American voices allows the Chinese government to elevate its influence campaigns and put a “friendly face” on pro-regime policies. The legislator or policymaker who hears from these American businessmen is properly more sympathetic to that constituent than to a foreigner. And by masking its participation in our political process, the PRC avoids accountability for its influence efforts and the public outcry that might result, if its lobbying were exposed.
America’s corporate leaders might not think of themselves as lobbyists. You might think, for example, that cultivating a mutually beneficial relationship is just part of the “guanxi”—or system of influential social networking—necessary to do business with the PRC. But you should be alert to how you might be used, and how your efforts on behalf of a foreign company or government could implicate the Foreign Agents Registration Act. FARA does not prohibit any speech or conduct. But it does require those who are acting as the “agents” of foreign principals to publicly disclose that relationship, and their political or other similar activities, by registering with the Justice Department, allowing the audience to take into account the origin of the speech when evaluating credibility.
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