Jonathan Pershing’s participation in the conference has come amid congressional scrutiny of Kerry’s talks with China.
A former deputy to U.S. climate envoy John Kerry appeared on a virtual panel last fall with a former Chinese climate negotiator as part of a joint forum hosted by the University of Chicago and Peking University, urging greater cooperation on climate between the U.S. and China.
That the event was supported by the China–U.S. Exchange Foundation (CUSEF), a Hong Kong-based Chinese Communist Party front group registered as a foreign agent with the Justice Department, was noteworthy in itself, but it is also significant in light of an ongoing House GOP investigation into whether the Biden administration’s climate talks undercut U.S. efforts to compete with China.
The forum occurred last October under the host schools’ annual U.S.–China Forum series and took place as Chinese officials continued to use the Biden administration’s outreach to China on climate matters as a political cudgel, withholding dialogue to punish American moves or to attempt to compel policy changes from Washington.
In the immediate aftermath of then–House speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan, China suspended its participation in bilateral discussions with the U.S. on a number of issues, including climate. A push to resume the negotiations was similarly frozen after the controversy surrounding the Chinese spy balloon that flew over sensitive U.S. military sites.
“Regrettably, in the last year . . . what was not supposed to happen has happened, which is the climate issue has gotten mixed up into all the other tensions that exist between our countries,” Kerry said at a conference this month, according to Axios. Yet, some communication between government officials has continued, with Kerry saying that his most recent conversation with Chinese climate envoy Xie Zhenhua was in February.
During their remarks to the virtual event, on October 12, former deputy climate envoy Jonathan Pershing and his former counterpart Zou Ji — China’s deputy climate negotiator and now CEO of a clean-energy nonprofit in China — described a path forward for unofficial, back-channel discussions, also known as Track 2 talks, to break the logjam.
“Track 2 will play a very extremely important role to keep the connection and communication between people to people, academia to academia, business to business, and at least maintain the connection and to share the information and to exchange ideas from the perspective of academia,” Zou said, adding that this would be helpful for talks between government officials. Pershing negotiated with Zou on climate issues during his tenure in the Obama administration, though he also served as Kerry’s deputy under the Biden administration until early 2022.
Pershing, who now runs climate-related initiatives at the Hewlett Foundation, said that none of the unofficial talks would be useful without meetings between senior government officials, adding that talks between President Biden and Xi Jinping, as well as China’s energy minister and the U.S. secretary of energy, would be essential.
Later in the discussion, Zou said he planned to travel to the U.S. to meet friends in academia and business for in-person discussions. It’s unclear what role Pershing’s former employer, the State Department, would play in setting up such unofficial conversations on climate or gleaning insights from their participants.
Pershing’s participation in the conference has come amid congressional scrutiny of Kerry’s talks with China. In the months since, that oversight push has picked up steam. In February, House oversight committee chairman James Comer requested documents from Kerry’s team about the climate talks, claiming that Kerry is engaged “in activities that could undermine our economic health, skirt congressional authority, and threaten foreign policy under the guise of climate advocacy.”
CUSEF is a Justice Department-registered foreign agent, and it enters into academic partnerships with a range of think tanks and universities, under the supervision of a senior Chinese official, Tung Chee-hwa, according to a 2018 report by the U.S.–China Economic and Security Review Commission. Tung, a former chief executive of Hong Kong, also served as vice chairman of a key government panel within the Chinese Communist Party’s political-influence system until he stepped down this month. CUSEF has extensive ties to the party’s powerful United Front Work Department, which works to exercise influence over foreign elites and certain demographics within China. The group did not respond to a request for comment.
A spokesman for the University of Chicago, however, told National Review that “the forum’s content, themes, panel topics, and panelists are determined by UChicago researchers and staff, along with participating academic partners,” adding that CUSEF, which has worked with the school on the annual forum since 2019, is not an academic partner and did not invite Pershing.
It’s not clear whether Pershing discussed his participation in the CUSEF-backed event with his former colleagues.
The State Department declined to comment and did not respond to National Review’s follow-up email asking whether there are any restrictions that would prohibit current State Department officials from engaging with United Front–linked entities.
The Hewlett Foundation also did not respond to a list of questions, including whether Pershing sought State’s permission to participate in the CUSEF-sponsored event or discussed it with officials currently serving in Kerry’s office.