A CCP-affiliated malign influence group leveraged its connections with U.S. politicians to convince Iowa parents to send their children to perform in Beijing.
In May, a Des Moines, Iowa, businessman named Luca Berrone reached out to a local high school gospel choir with a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Berrone told the director that his choir, called Bridges 2 Harmony, had been invited to perform with “a symposium of choirs from around the world” in Shijiazhuang, a city in southern China, in mid-July.
The invitation seemed plausible, as Shijiazhuang had been linked to Des Moines for decades as one of its “Sister Cities.” Members of the choir, most of whom were under 18 and had never traveled internationally, were thrilled to hear they were headed to China.
In a meeting with the students’ families less than a month later, Berrone told parents that the nature of the trip had transformed, an attendee told NR. The choir would now be skipping the first part of the symposium in Shijiazhuang. Instead, they would fly into Beijing and stay in China’s capital. The choir was to give three performances for high-level representatives of the Chinese government, including President Xi Jinping and his wife. (In the end, Xi himself did not attend the concert, though his wife did.)
Berrone told parents that the Des Moines choir would be the “highlight of the entire symposium.” Their children’s presence in Beijing was to be widely publicized in Chinese media. Nowhere on the itinerary he provided did it mention an “international choir symposium,” which was initially presented as the purpose of the trip.
All in-country trip expenses — meals, hotels, transportation, tourist site visits — were being paid for by a Chinese foreign affairs organization, the Chinese People’s Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries, or CPAFFC. Airfare would be covered by the Chinese government. CPAFFC staff, as well as Berrone, would escort the choir throughout their stay.
A Tool in China’s ‘United Front’ Strategy
The CPAFFC purports to be a nongovernmental organization focused on fostering friendly exchanges with foreign countries, but it is deeply connected to the Chinese Communist Party. As the principal agency of China’s “united front” strategy, the CPAFFC is tasked with expanding the CCP’s influence around the world. Its outreach efforts in Iowa schools match the organization’s playbook.
According to the Jamestown Foundation, a U.S. defense policy think tank, the CPAFFC is one of the People’s Republic of China’s “united front organizations among thousands that, along with its affiliate organizations, continues to work with numerous local government officials and organizations across the United States.” A lack of transparency around its true mission “leads to local officials in the United States and elsewhere unwittingly being co-opted into promoting party narratives and burnishing the PRC’s reputation.”
In 2020, then-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo flagged the CPAFFC as a “Beijing-based organization tasked with co-opting subnational governments” that has “sought to directly and malignly influence state and local leaders to promote the PRC’s global agenda.” Two years later, the U.S. director of national intelligence further explained the threat posed by the CPAFFC. Entrusted with managing China’s “sister” relationships with foreign nations, the CPAFFC forms agreements with U.S. cities and institutions that the PRC can then “exploit” to “press its agendas.”
The CPAFFC did not publicly address the State Department’s designation, but the Chinese government responded by retaliating against U.S. media outlets operating in China, ordering the outlets to disclose details of their operations in the country.
According to an Iowa-based FBI agent who specializes in Chinese influence operations, “united front” outreach efforts by China are a frequent occurrence, often organized by the CPAFFC. The agent said that the CPAFFC exploits sister city relationships established decades ago to justify person-to-person exchanges.
CPAFFC-organized student trips are typically used to create propaganda for the CCP. The FBI agent emphasized that every aspect of CPAFFC-organized student trips is orchestrated to paint China in the best possible light. While such “exchanges” may not be illegal, the Chinese propaganda campaigns featuring American students that are produced during these trips do pose a threat to U.S. national security.
A video compilation shared by the FBI agent shows examples of such propaganda from recent Iowa student trips to China. A group of students from Muscatine High School in Iowa is shown saying “I love you, China,” in Mandarin. One of the students, clearly struggling to speak in Mandarin, says on video, “Thank you, Grandpa Xi. China is vast and beautiful.”
Other footage shows travelers praising China’s cleanliness and questioning U.S. media portrayals of the country. An accompanying teacher remarks how “it was really exciting for me to watch the students make those conclusions about how the media they consume in the United States is not accurate, now that they have been on this trip.”
The FBI agent explained how agreements between U.S. organizations and Chinese united front groups, such as the CPAFFC, often include provisions that allow China to exert pressure down the road. A report issued by the director of national intelligence explains how “punishments for U.S. subnational leaders whose views or actions are not favored by the PRC may take the form of withdrawn investments or other actions.” One such instance occurred in 2019, when a U.S. governor “received a letter from a PRC Consulate threatening to cancel a Chinese investment in the Governor’s state if the Governor chose to travel to Taiwan.”
In the case of Iowa, the FBI agent said, agricultural trade is the crux of the relationship with China. According to the US-China Business Council, “Iowa’s goods and services exports to China supported 27,570 American jobs in 2022.” The bulk of those exports are crops, meat products, and agricultural machinery.
An Old Friend of Xi
Berrone explained his connection to China at the meeting with the Des Moines choir members’ parents, according to an attendee. He said that he met Xi Jinping in 1985 when Xi, then a county-level official, visited Iowa as part of an agricultural delegation. Berrone was part of a small group that escorted Xi, and they have kept in contact since.
The Chinese government corroborates this story. Berrone claimed at the meeting that he and Xi are still close, hugging whenever they see one another.
Berrone informed parents that, while in Beijing, the choir would stay in luxurious high-rise hotels with one or two floors “sealed off” for American students. The hotel rooms would already have plugs for charging their phones built into the wall, so students would not need to bring chargers or adapters of their own. Berrone also instructed students and their families to download the Chinese social media app WeChat onto their phones for communication during the trip.
Downloading WeChat likely opened students and parents to cybersecurity threats. An analysis performed by the University of Toronto’s Citizen Lab found that “WeChat communications conducted entirely among non-China-registered accounts are subject to pervasive content surveillance that was previously thought to be exclusively reserved for China-registered accounts.” In using WeChat, the students may also have unwittingly aided the CCP’s internal censorship efforts: “Upon analysis, files deemed politically sensitive are used to invisibly train and build up WeChat’s Chinese political censorship system,” Citizen Lab found.
The Des Moines choir’s trip to China would not be Berrone’s first. He informed parents that his organization, Iowa Sister States, had helped send over 500 high school students from across Iowa to China in the past couple of years, funded by the Chinese government and the CPAFFC. One such trip departed in June with nearly 50 students from Central Academy, Des Moines Public Schools’ magnet school for advanced high schoolers. Annual trips to China from Central Academy have been occurring for the past few years.
Other student trips from Iowa cities to China have been funded by the Chinese government, including a February 2024 visit by Muscatine High School students who performed songs praising Xi Jinping. On that trip, students “sang a song celebrating Chinese President Xi Jinping for helping them visit the country,” according to school communications.
Berrone did not respond to NR’s requests for comment.
A Formalized Relationship with the CPAFFC
The Des Moines choir was only invited to Beijing after eleven of its members performed a concert for a group of Chinese government officials at an event celebrating the 40th anniversary of Xi Jinping’s first visit to Iowa. Choir director Alexander Gray described the performance in an email to parents as “one of the most important performances we would do!” The concert was held at the Des Moines headquarters of the World Food Prize Foundation, which administers the world’s most prestigious award in food and agriculture.
The CPAFFC had previously established a foothold in Iowa by partnering with the World Food Prize Foundation. In 2024, the signing of a “Memorandum of Understanding” was announced that “formalizes the relationship between the Iowa-based World Food Prize Foundation and the People’s Republic of China.”
The memorandum included a commitment to “conduct exchange programs for government officials, students, and industry leaders.” It was signed by the China Friendship Foundation for Peace and Development, which the CPAFFC created in 1996. This entity is now “registered with the approval of the Ministry of Civil Affairs of the People’s Republic of China and overseen by the CPAFFC.”
Also signing onto the memorandum of understanding was an organization called the US-China Green Institute. Launched in 2023, the organization claims that its mission is to be a “driving force in advancing US-China cooperation in critical areas of climate action, technology development, and sustainable economic growth,” including through student exchanges between the United States and China.
Although the US-China Green Institute described the memorandum of understanding as “historic” in a press release, a spokesperson for the World Food Prize now says that “no action has been taken at the World Food Prize Foundation in furtherance of the Memorandum of Understanding and no action is anticipated at this time in the future.”
The US-China Green Institute lists Terry Branstad as its founder and chairman. In 2023, when he created the institute, Branstad was also serving as the president of the World Food Prize Foundation. Branstad was previously the governor of Iowa from 2011 to 2017 and the U.S. ambassador to China under the first Trump administration from 2017 to 2020.
Reached for comment, a spokesperson for Branstad emphasized that Berrone had no official role with the World Food Prize.
Friends in High Places
Two other U.S. political figures are linked to both the World Food Prize Foundation and the Des Moines high school choir trip to China.
Kenneth Quinn, a career member of the U.S. Foreign Service who served as the U.S. ambassador to Cambodia under President Clinton, was president of the World Food Prize Foundation from 2000 to 2020. He is now listed as the foundation’s president emeritus.
After some parents expressed concerns regarding the China trip to Des Moines Public Schools, the choir director sent out an email containing testimonials assuring parents of the trip’s propriety, including one from Quinn.
“My friend and colleague Luca Berrone has been a highly respected citizen diplomat with whom I have had positive experiences coordinating programs both in Iowa and China,” Quinn is quoted in the email to parents, which was obtained by National Review. He said that he would “encourage Iowa students to take advantage of opportunities to travel to China and to learn about the culture and the people.” In the same message, Quinn acknowledged that “travel to or having programs with China can be controversial with some parents.”
Quinn emphasized in a statement to National Review that he was not affiliated with the World Food Prize Foundation at the time he gave advice to parents and that he gave the advice solely in his personal capacity.
Quinn said that the opinion he expressed to parents was based on his experience orchestrating overseas trips for hundreds of students during his time as president of the World Food Prize Foundation. He added that he was not aware at the time he gave the advice that funding for the trip came from the CPAFFC, which he considers a pro-CCP influence organization. He was also not aware that the World Food Prize had signed a memorandum of understanding with the China Friendship Foundation for Peace and Development.
Tom Vilsack, the former Iowa governor and U.S. secretary of agriculture who now serves as the first chief executive officer for the World Food Prize Foundation, also gave an assurance to a friend whose child was going on the choir trip. Vilsack said that, although he was not discouraging the trip, the child should be careful about how they spoke about the U.S. and China and should consider how their words could be used for propaganda purposes. The concerned parent then relayed Vilsack’s message to the principal of the choir’s school, Theodore Roosevelt High School, who privately cited Vilsack’s assurance in explaining his decision to allow the trip.
The World Food Prize Foundation’s spokesperson told NR that “any comments made by Ambassador Kenneth M. Quinn and Ambassador Terry Branstad on this topic were not done in their capacities with the World Food Prize Foundation or on behalf of the Foundation.”
In an email to parents, the high school principal said that “public figures have privately shared insights with us that I can’t share but factored into our calculation.” The principal also cited Terry Branstad as someone who could vouch for the CPAFFC as the former president of the World Food Prize Foundation, “which is where all of this came from.”
The high school choir arrived in Beijing on Monday, July 14.
‘I Love China’
While in Beijing, students regularly posed for Chinese cameras and film crews. Countless videos of American high school students singing alongside Chinese counterparts were blasted across state media, emphasizing harmony in defiance of geopolitical divisions.
The English-language branch of the state-run China Global Television Network published an article describing how ten U.S. student choirs, including the one from Des Moines, joined Chinese youth choirs on stage to sing “We Are the World” in a push for peace between China and the United States. “This spontaneous moment of harmony, born not of protocol but of genuine connection, came to define the spirit” of the festival, the article read. In reality, this and every other performance had been planned and rehearsed.
The article held up the choir festival as counter-evidence to American assessments of China as a threat. “In this context, we must also question the narrow lens of the ‘America First’ mantra. In a multipolar, interconnected world, leadership must be built not on dominance but on mutual respect.”
It went on to explicitly urge the U.S. to adopt a softer stance toward China based on the high school students’ experience. “What if the true bedrock of China-U.S. relations lies not in military might or economic rivalry, but in these ‘soft bridges’ of shared emotion, collaboration, and trust? The real contest is no longer over land or trade, but over imagination, empathy, and narrative.”
Students on the trip filled their social media feeds with images celebrating China as they enjoyed the lavish amenities and outings. They were seen posing for group photos with their arms forming the shape of a heart at the Forbidden City and the Great Wall of China, and dressing up in elaborate Chinese costumes and makeup at a Beijing opera house. Choir members reposted footage reels of performances compiled by Chinese media. One student shared a video of herself standing in her CPAFFC-provided luxury hotel room with the message “I love china” repeated seven times on the screen.
Near the end of the trip, the Des Moines choir visited what one student described as a “propaganda school,” where they were asked to perform a Chinese song. Not knowing what the words meant, some of the students declined to participate. They later told friends back home that they were proud of themselves for avoiding China’s propaganda.