‘Embrace China’: Biden’s Latest Diplomatic Hire Worked with CCP Front Groups – Washington Free Beacon

Nina Hachigian labored to strengthen U.S.-China ties on the Middle for American Progress

Chuck Ross • October 6, 2022 5:00 am

President Biden’s newest State Division rent, who as soon as urged People to “embrace China,” has labored with two outstanding Chinese language Communist Occasion entrance teams to foster ties between Washington and Beijing.

Biden tapped Nina Hachigian to function the State Division’s particular consultant for subnational diplomacy. The newly created place is aimed partly at countering China’s rising diplomatic affect. However Hachigian has labored lately with Chinese language organizations the Biden administration has stated are affect organs for the Chinese language Communist Occasion.

As deputy mayor of Los Angeles, Hachigian met with the president of the Chinese language Individuals’s Affiliation for Friendship with International International locations, a significant CCP affect group, to debate “exchanges and cooperation” between the USA and China. On the Middle for American Progress, a liberal assume tank, Hachigian was a part of a delegation with officers from the CCP-backed China–U.S. Trade Basis that proposed “exchanges of army personnel” between the American army and Individuals’s Liberation Military to strengthen the U.S.-China relationship. She additionally collaborated on the Middle for American Progress with an official from the China Institutes of Modern Worldwide Relations, a authorities assume tank overseen by China’s essential intelligence company.

Hachigian, who contributed $19,400 to Biden’s marketing campaign in 2020, is the newest in a string of State Division appointees who’ve espoused sympathetic views towards China or labored carefully with CCP teams. Tom Donilon, who Biden tapped to advise the State Division on “strategic competitors” with China, is an government at BlackRock, the personal fairness behemoth that’s closely invested in China. Dominic Ng, a outstanding Biden donor picked to advise the State Division on commerce in Asia, has criticized U.S. tariffs on China and served in a number of pro-Beijing organizations in the USA. Local weather czar John Kerry, who holds a $1 million stake in a Chinese language funding group that funds China’s synthetic intelligence sector, has downplayed China’s human rights abuses with a purpose to preserve cooperation with Beijing on local weather change.

Hachigian has criticized the Chinese language authorities at instances over its human rights abuses and aggression towards Taiwan and Tibet. However she has additionally repeatedly urged American leaders to take a mushy method to China, whereas downplaying the risk Beijing poses to the West. She referred to as on People to “embrace China” in a 2007 opinion piece, wherein she acknowledged that “China’s development will trigger some People to lose their jobs or receives a commission much less.” She opposed a Western boycott of the 2008 Beijing Olympics over China’s human rights report, calling on American leaders to “resist the try to carry the Olympics hostage.” That very same yr she stated that China was “a safety companion,” and “not a risk,” in areas resembling terrorism, North Korea, Iran, and pandemics.

Intelligence officers have raised nationwide safety issues over the organizations Hachigian labored with as a assume tank scholar and metropolis official. CIA director William Burns expressed alarm over the China-U.S. Trade Basis’s covert affect actions throughout a listening to final yr. The Workplace of the Director of Nationwide Intelligence stated this summer season the CCP makes use of the Chinese language Individuals’s Affiliation for Friendship with International International locations “to straight and malignly affect state and native leaders” to advertise China’s world agenda.

Hachigian met in October 2017 with the president of the group, Li Xiaolin, to debate “the change and cooperation in areas resembling sister metropolis, environmental safety and youth.” The director of nationwide intelligence says the Chinese language Individuals’s Affiliation for Friendship with International International locations “exploit[s]” sister metropolis agreements to get American state and metropolis leaders to melt their stances towards China or embrace Beijing-friendly insurance policies. Hachigian’s assembly with Xiaolin was organized by the State Legislative Leaders Basis, a nonprofit group that labored with Hunter Biden to advance his Chinese language enterprise pursuits.

Hachigian was a part of a Middle for American Progress delegation that met in 2013 with the China-U.S. Trade Basis to debate diplomatic options to the U.S.-China relationship. Hachigian accompanied Middle for American Progress founder John Podesta, whereas the Chinese language facet was represented by the founding father of the China-U.S. Trade Basis, and officers from the Individuals’s Liberation Military’s Academy of Army Science and the China Institutes of Modern Worldwide Relations, which operates below China’s intelligence service.

One participant was Yuan Peng, the top of the China Institutes of Modern Worldwide Relations, which the CIA says is a “Soviet-style intelligence organ” for the Chinese language authorities whose leaders “share prolonged and shadowy careers within the intelligence service.” Hachigian collaborated with Peng for her 2014 guide on the United States-China relationship. Peng stated in 2007 that “nearly all enemies of the USA are China’s buddies,” the Weekly Normal reported.

In keeping with a report of the Middle for American Progress dialogue with the China-U.S. Trade Basis, either side urged nearer ties between the 2 nations’ militaries with a purpose to foster “extra understanding and a extra mature relationship.” The American delegation stated the exchanges ought to contain “low-ranking officers and college students” with a purpose to “construct belief as they transfer by their careers of their respective nations.”

The delegations additionally referred to as for extra cooperation on the “subnational stage” with a purpose to function a “ballast” within the U.S.-China relationship, a preview of types for a similar points Hachigian will now deal with on the State Division.

A State Division spokesperson stated the company has “full confidence” in Hachigian.

“Amb. Hachigian’s background will likely be integral in participating native companions and fostering collaboration on lots of the Division’s key priorities—together with the priorities surrounding our competitors with the PRC,” the spokesperson stated.