Surveillance balloons are the least of our worries when it comes to Chinese infiltration of the United States.
For nearly a decade now, Chinese companies with ties to the ruling communist regime have been buying up military academies in the United States, including the one attended by former President Donald J. Trump.
Here is the story as reported by the Washington Free Beacon:
In 2015, a member of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, which serves as the Chinese Communist Party’s political advisory board, purchased Donald Trump’s alma mater, the New York Military Academy, for $16 million…. Conference member Mo Tianquan secured the purchase after a bidding war with another Chinese conglomerate.
Two years later, a Chinese education conglomerate purchased the Florida Preparatory Academy as part of its plan to create “a global educational alliance system.” The organization partnered with a CCP-controlled regional government agency on the initiative. Both the New York Military Academy and Florida Preparatory Academy operate Junior Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (JROTC) programs, which train future military officers.
The response to the surreptitious consolidation of American schools with military academies has been tepid, at best.
Again, from the Free Beacon:
Rep. Michael Waltz (R., Fla.), a member of the House Armed Services Committee, says Chinese ownership of these schools could pose a national security threat.
“To the extent that those private schools have junior ROTC programs that are forming the backbone of our future leaders of our military, this is something I would hope and would expect the Defense Department would work with me to better understand,” Waltz told the Washington Free Beacon.
Waltz on Tuesday sent a letter to Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, urging the Pentagon to survey JROTC programs at private schools across the country to see if they are foreign-owned.
“With the ongoing military recruitment crisis, I am concerned that any students we recruit into the service from these CCP-influenced schools will have a sympathetic view of China’s political and strategic aims,” Waltz, who chairs the House subcommittee on military readiness, wrote to Austin.
As for the Chinese, what interest would they have in adding private military academies to their vast and valuable portfolio of American holdings?
An article published by a mouthpiece for Beijing claims that the Chinese companies started buying up these schools “in the hopes of cashing in on Chinese students’ quest for admission into a U.S. college.”
Beijing is clever enough to know not only the loopholes in U.S. immigration laws, but how to pass plenty of Chinese nationals through those loopholes and onto the rolls of American private schools.
Following the purchase of the New York Military Academy by Fang Holdings, the new superintendent predicted a prolific influx of Chinese students to the school.
Perhaps the part of the story that is most enraging is not the purchase of the private schools by agents or advocates of the Chinese government, but that our own Department of Defense is funneling funds from American taxpayers to the companies carrying water for the Chinese Communists!
As the Free Beacon revealed:
According to a federal spending database, the Department of Defense has awarded over $475,000 in contracts for various cadet programs to New York Military Academy since its Chinese takeover.
It’s quite a feat for the Chinese Communist Party and its supporters not only to purchase private schools with military academies, but to do so with money unknowingly provided by American taxpayers.
Still not convinced that this story is smoke that signals a fire? Consider this information provided by the Free Beacon report:
Mo, Fang’s founder and majority shareholder, has openly discussed his allegiance to the Chinese Communist Party. In 2018, Mo said he was “very honored” to be a member of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, which he affirmed operates “under the leadership of the Communist Party of China.” He said a qualification for the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference role was to be “a good serviceman in government.” At the New York Military Academy, Mo has installed many of his Chinese business partners on the historic school’s board of trustees.
The owner of the Florida Preparatory Academy, formerly known as the Florida Air Academy, has in recent years built up an international network of private schools as part of a “global educational alliance system.” China’s Newopen Group, which in 2017 purchased the school for an unknown sum, a year before the purchase signed a strategic partnership with Chongqing Environmental Investment Group, a CCP-linked municipal agency, to build the network across China, North America, Europe, and Australia.
From the purchase of these private schools with military academies, to the shameless and fearless floating of a surveillance balloon across nearly the entire territory of the United States from Alaska to beyond the coast of South Carolina, to the secret establishment of police stations throughout North America, the Chinese Communist Party and its agents, affiliates, and adherents are, to use James Madison’s words, making “silent and gradual” strides toward creating a secret but solid presence in the United States — and they are using American taxpayer money to do so.
A message sent to former President Trump requesting comment on the Chinese purchase of his alma mater has gone unanswered as of the publishing of this article.
