Missouri AG Sends Strong Message To CCP: Spy Another Day

Chinese Communist secret police have infiltrated the United States. Working through so-called “nonprofits” with pedestrian-sounding names, these operators have set up spy nests and secret police stations, subverting our Republic while exporting Chinese Communist Party (CCP) totalitarianism to American shores.

Investigative reporting has exposed several of these operations, known as “Overseas Chinese Service Centers (OCSCs), in seven American cities: Charlotte, Omaha, Houston, San Francisco, St. Paul, and St. Louis. Working through these organizations, the CCP can extend its intelligence gathering, influence operations and transnational repression activity into virtually any community. 

In St. Louis, Missouri State Attorney General Andrew Bailey has reacted decisively. He launched a legal investigation into the OCSC after finding that it violated Missouri law by engaging in “deception, fraud, false promises, misrepresentation, unfair practices, and/or the concealment, suppression, or omission of material facts in connection with the solicitation of charitable funds.”

Bailey’s leadership comes at a critical juncture. National security experts have been ringing alarm bells over the CCP’s vast network of subversive operations against the United States in the American heartland. The OCSCs are a key part of that network.

OCSCs assume the mantle of nonprofit organizations that, on the surface, promote Chinese culture and assist Chinese citizens living abroad. But their strings are pulled by the United Front Work Department (UFWD), an intelligence service which answers directly to the CCP’s Central Committee in Beijing. In addition to helping steal American intellectual property, United Front operations are heavily engaged in transnational repression.

In April 2023, two men were charged by the Department of Justice for running a secret police station in New York City under the direction of China’s Ministry of Public Security (MPS). The case shines a light on how Communist Party agents operate on U.S. soil.

All around the world, China’s overseas police stations monitor, harass and intimidate dissidents. In some cases, they’ve facilitated the extra-judicial kidnapping of China’s enemies to face the Peoples Republic of China’s notorious legal system.

One of the New York defendants, Lu Jianwang, organized counter-protests against the Falun Gong on behalf of the MPS during President Xi Jinping’s 2015 visit to Washington, D.C. In 2018, Lu helped pressure a fugitive to return to China by threatening the victim and their family. In 2022, an MPS official tapped Lu to help track down a pro-democracy dissident thought to be living in California.

CCP infiltration extends far beyond secret police stations and the OCSCs. Attorney General Bailey must launch a similar investigation into another CCP operation in Missouri masquerading as a nonprofit: the U.S. Heartland China Association (USHCA). When the State Department launched its China Initiative to counter Chinese economic espionage and protect critical U.S. infrastructure, the CCP became alarmed at its effectiveness. In response, the USHCA co-hosted an event in 2021, calling the initiative as the “return of McCarthyism.” USHCA’s manipulation scheme worked. Just months later, the Biden administration discontinued the China Initiative amid alleged concern that it was fueling “intolerance and bias against Asian Americans.”

Organizations like the USHCA work hand-in-glove with the Beijing-based Chinese Peoples’ Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries (CPAFFC), which according to the U.S. Department of State, actively seeks to “malignly influence state and local leaders to promote the PRC’s global agenda,” and is the party organ “tasked with co-opting and neutralizing threats to the party’s rule and spreading its influence and propaganda overseas.”

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While Attorney General Bailey is doing what he can within his legal authority to target illegal CCP operations in Missouri, state legislatures around the country must give their attorneys general more tools to deal with this threat. They should start by passing state-level Foreign Agent Registration Act (FARA) laws that close federal FARA loopholes and help expose the operations of foreign adversaries within the United States. State legislatures should also enact legislation that would enable law enforcement to crack down on transnational repression operations. And, of course, attorneys general must use these tools to take action against malign influence operations in their respective states.

The myth that China is interested in becoming more friendly and more democratic is falling apart, and we can take some comfort in that. But the CCP is relentless, and the federal government cannot face it down alone. Protecting our homeland from the CCP will demand focus, commitment, and action by our state and local government officials.

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Michael Lucci is the founder, CEO, and Chairman of State Armor, which he created to develop and enact state solutions to global security threats. Follow him at: @Michael7ucci

The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of the Daily Wire.