HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_020563.jpg

104

This section intends to highlight three main developments. First, China is supporting an increasing number of local chambers of commerce in the United States with direct ties to CCP officials. Second, as Chinese companies have become more global, they have also grown more sophisticated in their efforts to socialize and localize themselves in their new American communities, but also acquire political influence in the United States. Finally, China increased its efforts to pressure, co-opt and sometimes even coerce foreign corporations with the aim of influencing politics in their home countries.

The Use of Business-Related United Front Organizations

Consistent with the practice of other nations, major Chinese firms operating in America are represented by a chamber of commerce network. Analysis detailed below suggests that China also operates an extensive list of United Front organizations purporting to be regional chambers of commerce. China’s public-facing chamber in the United States is known as the China General Chamber of Commerce (CGCC), which was founded in 2005. It is headquartered in New York with five regional operations in Chicago, Houston, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Washington, DC. Its website states that it has 1,500 member companies, both Chinese and non-Chinese. The organization’s chair is Bank of China USA president and CEO Xu Chen. Its website lists more than sixty individuals, many from state-owned companies, in governance roles; its website lists a staff of nine.

Consistent with business organizations of other countries, the CGCC engages in a mix of political engagement with its host and home countries (e.g., testifying at the US International Trade Commission⁵ and hosting officials from the Chinese Ministry of Commerce⁶); informational activities for its members (e.g., a lunch-and-learn on labor and safety issues in the United States);⁷ and promotional activities (e.g., dinner galas and charity events). The CGCC is actively engaged with senior American political and business leaders. In July 2017, it hosted a welcome luncheon at the National Governors Association meeting in Rhode Island, at which the governors of Maryland, Kentucky, Alaska, Arizona, Louisiana, and Rhode Island attended. In September 2017, the group organized the visit of the governors of Alaska and Missouri to China.⁸

Inconsistent with the practice of other countries, China also oversees an extensive network of local chambers of commerce. This raises a question of their possible ties to the Chinese party-state, and whether these chambers may be misrepresenting themselves as local concerns when they are instead activated by, or in liaison with, the Chinese government. Research for this project has identified thirty-one business-focused organizations operating in the United States that are explicitly associated with or whose profiles and activities are highly suggestive of involvement with United Front work.⁹ Most of these groups are concentrated in Greater Los Angeles and New York City, two principal communities of the Chinese diaspora. They are typically organized by hometown province of origin. This count

Corporations

HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_020563