Chinese dictator Xi Jinping used his weekend address to the Central Conference on United Front Work to make more aggressive use of that deeply suspicious Communist organization for radicalizing and weaponizing Chinese people living in Western nations.

China’s “United Front” system is an elaborate network of well-funded influence operations that infiltrate and co-opt groups outside the Chinese Communist Party, and for that matter outside of China. The United Front is basically a system for injecting the ideological toxins of Chinese Communism into every group that looks vulnerable and useful.

Some “United Front Work” looks respectable and above-board, disguised as diplomatic programs, cultural outreach, and charity efforts. The United Front also engages in covert subversive activities and supports outright espionage from the regime in Beijing. 

One of the most pernicious programs overseen by the United Front Work Department is the Confucius Institute, a network of supposedly benign Chinese language and cultural training programs at American universities. The Confucius Institutes were largely shut down by the U.S. government and university management over the past few years, but they are making a comeback under different names.

Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo warned in December 2020 that the Confucius Institutes were only one of many appendages the United Front uses to influence students, especially young Chinese studying overseas.

“The United Front frequently intimidates members of academia, businesses, civil society groups, and Chinese diaspora communities, including members of ethnic and religious minority communities who speak out against horrific human rights abuses taking place in Xinjiang, Tibet, and elsewhere in China,” Pompeo said.

The U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission, established by Congress in 2000, warned in August 2018 that the United Front Work Department has accumulated more power, importance, and funding under Xi Jinping. 

The U.S. commission said Xi views the United Front as an ideal instrument for subverting Western society because politically-correct Western officials are reluctant to criticize it:

It is precisely the nature of United Front work to seek influence through connections that are difficult to publicly prove and to gain influence that is interwoven with sensitive issues such as ethnic, political, and national identity, making those who seek to identify the negative effects of such influence vulnerable to accusations of prejudice

China’s state-run Xinhua news service quoted Xi telling the United Front conference to intensify its “patriotic” and “historic” efforts, with an emphasis on spreading Xi’s own totalitarian writings to Westerners and Chinese living abroad:

Xi defined the main tasks of the patriotic united front in the new era as follows: to follow the guidance of the Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era and uphold the CPC’s leadership; to adhere to the path of socialism with Chinese characteristics and hold high the great banner of patriotism and socialism; to balance commonality and diversity, focus on the central task of economic development and serve the overall interests of the country; to advance with the times and innovate on the basis of what has worked in the past; to strengthen theoretical and political guidance, and fulfill the political function of gathering support and pooling strength; to promote harmony between different political parties, ethnic groups, religions, social strata, as well as our compatriots at home and abroad; to promote concerted endeavor of Chinese people at home and abroad and bring together powerful strength for building China into a great modern socialist country in all respects and achieving the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation.

Xi laid out a few targets for United Front Work to focus on, including instructions to “develop religions in the Chinese context” and “foster close bonds with non-Communist Party of China intellectuals and personages from new social strata.” In other words, Xi wants the United Front to subvert leftists and wokesters around the world.

Xi also instructed the United Front to “win the hearts and minds of people in Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan as well as overseas Chinese,” and “rally all Chinese people both at home and abroad to realize national rejuvenation.” 

As Pompeo and other critics have long noted, the United Front plays a major role in keeping overseas Chinese firmly in the Communist Party fold – using surveillance and threats when “winning hearts and minds” proves too difficult.

Xi emphasized the importance of maintaining tight Communist Party control over the United Front, implicitly because the growing Chinese middle class must be insulated from the temptations of prosperity and the free world:

As the structure of our society is undergoing a profound change, the united front plays an even more important role in bolstering the Party’s class foundation and expanding public support for it. We must thoroughly understand the significance of developing and expanding the patriotic united front in the new era and effectively perform our duties with a strong sense of mission and responsibility.

…

We should also promote the healthy development of the private sector and encourage those working in the sector to achieve success. We need to help them to develop firm ideals and convictions and uphold core socialist values, to put into practice the new development philosophy and to nurture an entrepreneurial spirit, so that they become qualified builders of socialism with Chinese characteristics

Xi concluded by urging the United Front to work on “non-Communist Party of China intellectuals and personages from new social strata.”

With United Front guidance, Xi said the Chinese private sector could “develop firm ideals and convictions and uphold core socialist values” even as they pursue financial success, transforming them into “qualified builders of socialism with Chinese characteristics.”

Organized and weaponized Chinese “patriots” living overseas, he said, can “help more foreigners understand and become friendly to China, so as to boost exchanges and mutual learning between Chinese and foreign cultures.”

Communist China is the greatest intellectual property thief in the history of mankind, so its notion of “exchanges” tends to be very one-sided. The United Front Work Department has long been a key player in China’s massive technology theft.

When Xi talks about “mutual learning” guided by the United Front, he means wholesale raids on the intellectual capital of other nations, through such means as the Thousand Talents Program (TTP), an extremely aggressive recruiting program for academics and engineers that has been investigated for espionage on numerous occasions. TTP is yet another program overseen by the United Front Work Department.

The South China Morning Post (SCMP) on Sunday noted that Chinese Communism founder Mao Zedong referred to the United Front Work Department as one of the “three magic weapons” that would guarantee the victory of his movement, the other two being the Communist Party itself and People’s Liberation Army.

Xi Jinping, who desperately wants to be written into the history books as a Communist leader of Mao’s stature, has the same view of United. Xi even quoted Mao in his weekend address:

The United Front is an important magic weapon for the party to overcome the enemy, govern and rejuvenate the country, and it is an important magic weapon for uniting all Chinese sons and daughters at home and abroad to realize the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation

“Xi makes it very clear that he will not only keep the party’s ‘magic weapon’, but also fit it with new edges, including how to win over the hearts and minds of cyberspace,” Xie Maosong of Tsinghua University told the SCMP.