Does the Chinese Communist Party have a “ground game” ongoing in Georgia to defeat Herschel Walker?
Guest post by Lawrence Sellin, Li-Meng Yan and Ding-Gang Wang
A November 15, 2022 article entitled “U.S. midterm elections: Georgia’s “play-in” to determine the final Senate map – How Chinese can seize the critical moment,” published on the Chinese language website of the BBC, described how the Chinese in Georgia are organizing to defeat Republican Senate candidate Herschel Walker in the upcoming run-off election.
According to that BBC article, Xiao Yu, who has helped several Chinese people run for office in Georgia and organized Chinese electioneering in the 2020 presidential election, is mobilizing Chinese to participate in the second round of the ballot in support of Democratic candidate Raphael Warnock.
Soon after arriving in the United Sates in 1990 to attend the University of Miami, Xiao Yu co-founded and was a board member of the Chinese Association of Science, Education and Culture of South Florida (CASEC), whose goals include “to strengthen the ties between the local Chinese community and China” and to “promote and preserve Chinese culture” in the United States.
In 2016, the CASEC Chairman, Zhang XueFeng sent a New Year’s greeting to the Chinese Communist Party:
“On behalf of the Chinese Association of Science, Education and Culture of South Florida, I would like to wish our great country prosperity and prosperity! Peace to the people and the country! South Florida Chinese are connected to the people of the motherland by heart, looking forward to direct flights with the motherland and economic take-off, let’s work for the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation!”
That does not sound like something an American patriot would say.
Later in 2016, Zhang XueFeng gave a keynote speech at a meeting in Miami organized by CASEC, the Chinese Consulate in Houston and the China Council for the Promotion of Peaceful National Reunification, which is an umbrella organization under the United Front Work Department of the Chinese Communist Party to promote unification between mainland China and Taiwan on terms defined solely by the People’s Republic of China.
Why might that be significant?
On February 24, 2021, Rep. Jody Hice (R-GA) and three other Georgia Republicans sent a letter to Paige Alexander, CEO of the Carter Center in Atlanta, expressing deep concern in regards to a number of events held at the Carter Center which seemed to promote Chinese Communist Party propaganda, one being held in cooperation with the United Front Work Department of the Chinese Communist Party.
A January 3, 2021 meeting held at the Carter Center was supported financially by the U.S.-China Heartland Association, an organization which works directly with the Chinese People’s Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries, an organization created by Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which has a history of pushing Chinese Communist Party propaganda in middle America.
That should come as no surprise because Yawei Liu, a senior advisor at the Carter Center, is also a member of the Board of Directors of the U.S.-China Heartland Association and on the research team of China’s Charhar Institute, a think tank rumored to provide analysis and proposals for Xi Jinping’s international strategies.
Yawei Liu is also quoted in the above-cited BBC article in which he seems to equate criticism of the Chinese Communist Party with an anti-Asian hate attack on Chinese-Americans, a propaganda narrative popular in Beijing.
The extent of influence by pro-Chinese Communist Party operatives in U.S. elections and their possible coordination with the Democrat Party have yet to be fully evaluated, but the preliminary evidence warrants further investigation.
One may also wonder whether the last forty years of Chinese immigration was at least partially meant to populate the United States with Fifth Columnists loyal to the Chinese Communist Party.
Lawrence Sellin, Ph.D. is retired U.S. Army Reserve colonel and a veteran of Afghanistan and Iraq. He had a civilian career in international business and medical research. Dr. Sellin is the author of Restoring the Republic: Arguments for a Second American Revolution. His email address is [email protected]om.