It is no surprise an American-Left implication has emerged linking the Brookings
Institute, Communist China AND by extension of supporting
the Dem (Marxist) Party – Quid Pro Joe Biden.
JRH 8/16/20
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Brookings Institution Partnered With Shanghai Policy
Center Under Scrutiny for Spying
Shanghai Academy acts as a front for Chinese spy
recruitment, according to FBI
Brookings Institute
building in DC/Wikimedia Commons
August 14, 2020 5:00 AM
The Brookings Institution, a prominent Washington, D.C.,
think tank, partnered with a Shanghai policy center that the FBI has described
as a front for China’s intelligence and spy recruitment operations, according
to public records and federal court documents.
The Brookings Doha Center, the think tank’s hub in Qatar,
signed a memorandum of understanding with the Shanghai Academy of Social
Sciences in January 2018, the institution said. The academy
is a policy center funded by the Shanghai municipal government that has raised
flags within the FBI.
The partnership raises questions about potential Chinese
espionage activities at the think tank, which employs numerous former
government officials and nearly two dozen current foreign policy advisers to
Joe Biden’s presidential campaign.
Since the partnership began, the organizations have teamed
up to host a 2018 conference in Shanghai and a 2019
joint workshop in Doha. Both events
focused on Middle East cooperation with China’s Belt and Road Initiative,
Beijing’s multinational infrastructure project that the U.S. government has
described as a global security threat.
"We highly value our partnership with the Shanghai
Academy of Social Sciences," Brookings Doha Center director Tarik Yousef
said at the joint workshop last December, calling the partnership a "very
productive collaboration that is expanding, deepening, and allowing us all to
better understand each other."
According to federal court records filed by the FBI, the
Shanghai Academy, which describes itself as "the second biggest academic
organization and comprehensive research center in the fields of philosophy and
social sciences in China," is closely aligned with Beijing’s top spy
agency, the Ministry of State Security. It has been used as a front group for
Chinese intelligence collection and overseas spy recruitment, the FBI said.
The court records are part of a criminal case against
retired CIA officer Kevin Patrick Mallory, who was sentenced to 20 years in
prison last year for selling classified U.S. defense documents to China in
2017. Federal investigators said Mallory was recruited by a Chinese national
who contacted him on LinkedIn and "represented himself to Mallory as
working for a PRC think tank, the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences."
According to the 2019 affidavit, the FBI believes that
senior Chinese officials use Shanghai Academy of Social Science for "cover
identities" and tap its employees as "spotters and assessors" of
potential spies.
China’s Ministry of State Security, which has close ties to
the academy, the affidavit says, is "focused on identifying and
influencing the foreign policy of other countries" and conducts
"clandestine and overt human source operations, of which the United States
is a principal target."
Joseph Bosco, who served as China country director under
former secretary of defense Donald Rumsfeld, told the Washington Free Beacon
that think tanks such as Brookings are an attractive target for Chinese
intelligence because they provide access to well-connected government insiders.
"A lot of the think tanks are populated by former
government officials who have inside information on how the government works,
particular policies," he said. "They have connections to people who
are still in the government, so they’re a wealth of potential information."
A Brookings spokesman told the Free Beacon that
Brookings is no longer affiliated with the Shanghai Academy, and that the
partnership was "a two-year collaboration consisting of two events that
explored political and economic relations between the Middle East and
China." The spokesman said the two groups did not exchange funds.
Chinese has a long history of spying in the United States
and abroad, but its intelligence operations have drawn renewed attention this
year due to a string of high-profile spy cases brought by federal prosecutors.
In recent months, the U.S. government has charged multiple university
professors and researchers, including the former chair of Harvard University’s
chemistry department, with defrauding the government while working on behalf of
Beijing. In July, the Trump administration ordered the closure of the Chinese
consulate in Houston, saying it was used as a base for espionage.
Brookings describes its Doha Center as an "overseas
center of the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C.," and a "hub
for Brookings scholarship in the region."
The center has advocated for increased cooperation between
Middle Eastern countries and China’s Belt and Road Initiative, which would
temper U.S. influence in the region while increasing China’s economic and
political leverage.
At a 2018 joint conference, Brookings Doha Center director
Yousef was photographed shaking hands with Shanghai Academy chancellor Yu
Xinhui in front of an orange background reading: "Academy of Social
Sciences and Brookings Doha Center, MOU Signing Ceremony."
Xinhui (Shanghai Academy Chancellor) &Tarik Yousef
(Brookings Doha director) 2018 (Brookings Doha Twitter)
That event, which took place in Shanghai, included speeches
and panels touting the benefits of the Belt and Road Initiative to both China
and the Arab world. Speakers included Yousef, Brookings Doha Center research
director Nader Kabbani, former Jordanian government official Ibrahim Saif, and
numerous Chinese and Middle Eastern policy experts, according to the event
schedule.
Beijing’s Belt and Road initiative is an ambitious long-term
plan to build a Chinese-funded trade route—including ports, roads, high-speed
railroads and airports—in countries across Asia, Europe, Africa, South America,
and Australia. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has described it as a
"treasury-run empire" and a "risk to American interests"
that would massively expand China’s sphere of influence, global military
presence, and economic leverage over participating countries.
Nearly two dozen scholars at Brookings currently serve as
advisers to the Biden campaign, including director of the Brookings China
Strategy Initiative Rush Doshi and the director of foreign policy research
Michael O’Hanlon, according to their biographies on the website. Other
Brookings officials, such as Middle East senior fellow Tamara Cofman Wittes,
previously worked under President Obama and could be candidates to serve in a
prospective Biden administration.
The most recent joint workshop held by the two groups took
place last December at the Marsa Malaz Kempinski, a luxury hotel in Doha, and
included "over 40 experts representing several distinguished international
institutions," according to a press release.
_________________________________
Alana Goodman is a senior investigative reporter for the Washington
Free Beacon. She was previously investigative political reporter at the
Washington Examiner and a senior reporter at the Daily Mail. Goodman has
written for Commentary, the Weekly Standard, and the New York Post. She lives
in Washington, D.C. Her Twitter handle is @alanagoodman. Her email address is
goodman@freebeacon.com.
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