Bill Adair, founder and contributing editor of the “fact-checking” website Politifact, was “journalist in residence” in 2012 for the U.S.-China Education Trust (USCET), which hosts journalism programs aimed at advising Chinese Communist Party-run media outlets and journalism schools.
USCET has worked with propaganda fronts for the Chinese Communist Party and trained journalists from the country’s state-run media outlets.
The group itself boasts of co-hosting programs with the Party School of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party, which Foreign Policy magazine has called “the supreme ideological training ground for party cadres and a prerequisite for any official interested in joining the elite political ranks of China’s ruling class.”
In addition, USCET has collaborated with over 70 of China’s top universities, as well as with the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, some of whose researchers have lost their American visas due to “spying fears” from the FBI.
Moreover, the group’s conferences have regularly featured participation from the secretary-general of CUSEF, the China-United States Exchange Foundation.
CUSEF is an important component in the Chinese Communist Party’s United Front initiative, which the U.S. government has said aims to “co-opt and neutralize sources of potential opposition to the policies and authority of its ruling Chinese Communist Party” and “influence overseas Chinese communities, foreign governments, and other actors to take actions or adopt positions supportive of Beijing’s preferred policies.”
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USCET hosts a “Journalist in Residence” program under which American journalists from outlets such as The New York Times go live in China and work beside state-run, communist media outlets.
Through the program, American journalists have worked with China Global Television Network and China Central Television, which have both been described as “long-standing weapons in Beijing’s arsenal of repression” designed “to attack designated enemies of the Communist Party.”
The fact that Adair took part in the USCET program raises questions about the objectivity of his creation, Politifact, which is the go-to fact-checking platform for Big Tech firms such as YouTube and Facebook.
Members of the mainstream media often use Politifact to confirm or deny the veracity of stories. The site appears to have a left-leaning bent, often labeling stories from conservative outlets and statements by conservative personalities as being “misleading.” Donald Trump called Politifact a “totally left-wing group.”
Besides being “journalist in residence,” Adair made remarks in sessions at a conference hosted by USCET’s Media Education Consortium (MEC), a network of nearly 40 state-run Chinese journalism and communications schools.
The National Pulse notes:
The annual conference, which sees American journalists offer their expertise to reporters at state-run outlets like CCTV, China Daily, Xinhua, and more, also includes lectures from professors at institutes such as the People’s Liberation Army Nanjing Institute of Politics.
It should also be noted that Kurt Campbell, Joe Biden’s “right hand man” on China, was formerly on USCET’s advisory council.
“We couldn’t be more pleased to welcome Kurt on board,” said USCET President Julia Chang Bloch in a press release. “The wealth of experience and insight he will bring are going to be tremendous assets as we continuously improve our programs in China.”
Campbell even spoke on a panel to celebrate the group’s 20-year anniversary, which featured remarks from Chinese Communist Party-linked Elaine Chao, the wife of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.).
The former executive director of USCET, Paul Boesen, was previously a senior advisor to the U.S.-China Strong Foundation, which is partly funded by the Bank of China and works with Confucius Institutes.
The Trump administration required Confucius Institutes to register as “foreign missions,” subjecting them to rules similar to those for embassies and consulates.
The FBI and Justice Department have stated that Confucius Institutes are replete with Chinese state propaganda, intellectual property theft, and “undisclosed ties to Chinese institutions, and conflicted loyalties.”
Thanks to a partnership between Confucius Institutes and the Asia Society, “more than 100 elementary, middle, and high schools located in 27 states and the District of Columbia” have launched “Confucius Classrooms” since 2009.
Joe Biden has taken a softer approach to China affairs than his predecessor. One of his first acts in office was to terminate a Trump-era executive order that kept China and other foreign powers out of America’s power grid.
The Trump order was made to ban, replace, and set new criteria on bulk-power system (BPS) electrical equipment coming from a foreign country or foreign national that poses a national security threat. It was undone as part of Biden’s “Executive Order on Protecting Public Health and the Environment and Restoring Science to Tackle the Climate Crisis,” released on the Democrat’s first day in the White House.
