Gregory Meeks Blocked Push to Punish Chinese Disinformation Efforts

House Foreign Affairs Committee chairman Gregory Meeks (D., N.Y.) quietly blocked an attempt late last month to place sanctions on the United Front Work Department (UFWD), a bureau that oversees the Chinese Communist Party’s foreign-influence network, Republican officials tell National Review.

In recent years, alarm about the UFWD’s efforts to influence how Western democracies view China has grown. Last year, a report by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute warned that the lack of publicly available information about the United Front network — which comprises the UFWD and other affiliated entities and individuals working to influence foreign opinions of China — has led policymakers to underestimate the network’s reach into elite circles. According to the report, the network “undermines social cohesion, exacerbates racial tension, influences politics, harms media integrity, facilitates espionage, and increases unsupervised technology transfer” outside China’s borders.

About the Author

Jimmy Quinn

Jimmy Quinn is the former national security correspondent for National Review.

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House Foreign Affairs Committee chairman Gregory Meeks (D., N.Y.) quietly blocked an attempt late last month to place sanctions on the United Front Work Department (UFWD), a bureau that oversees the Chinese Communist Party’s foreign-influence network, Republican officials tell National Review.

In recent years, alarm about the UFWD’s efforts to influence how Western democracies view China has grown. Last year, a report by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute warned that the lack of publicly available information about the United Front network — which comprises the UFWD and other affiliated entities and individuals working to influence foreign opinions of China — has led policymakers to underestimate the network’s reach into elite circles. According to the report, the network “undermines social cohesion, exacerbates racial tension, influences politics, harms media integrity, facilitates espionage, and increases unsupervised technology transfer” outside China’s borders.