(National Pulse) Major U.S. news outlets including CNN, CNBC, and the Associated Press recently met with Chinese Communist Party propagandists flagged by the U.S. government for seeking to “malignly influence” U.S. politics, The National Pulse can reveal.
Bureau chiefs for the Associated Press, CNN, and CNBC took a meeting with the Chinese People’s Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries (CPAFFC), which is part of China’s billion-dollar “United Front” effort.
The United Front aims to “to co-opt and neutralize sources of potential opposition to the policies and authority of its ruling Chinese Communist Party” and “influence foreign governments to take actions or adopt positions supportive of Beijing’s preferred policies,” according to the federal U.S.-China Security and Economic Review Commission – U.S. government initiative from 2018.
United Front groups such as the China United States Exchange Foundation (CUSEF) have used tactics including free trips to China to garner “favorable coverage” from mainstream media outlets according to Foreign Agent Registration Act (FARA) filings.
The CPAFFC has been dubbed the “public face” of the United Front Work Department and “avowedly an arm of the party-state” in addition to being flagged by the U.S. State Department for its campaigns to “directly and malignly influence” American officials and business leaders.
Journalists met with the President, Lin Songtian, at the group’s Beijing headquarters on July 26th, 2022.
As a press release from the group’s Chinese-language website reveals, the meeting “enhanced mutual understanding and friendship”:
The CPAFFC President appeared to instruct the media representatives to portray China as an ally as opposed to a “major competitor” to avoid “misjudgment and misleading public opinion”:
