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Alan W. Dowd is a Senior Fellow with the American Security Council Foundation, where he writes on the full range of topics relating to national defense, foreign policy and international security. Dowd’s commentaries and essays have appeared in Policy Review, Parameters, Military Officer, The American Legion Magazine, The Journal of Diplomacy and International Relations, The Claremont Review of Books, World Politics Review, The Wall Street Journal Europe, The Jerusalem Post, The Financial Times Deutschland, The Washington Times, The Baltimore Sun, The Washington Examiner, The Detroit News, The Sacramento Bee, The Vancouver Sun, The National Post, The Landing Zone, Current, The World & I, The American Enterprise, Fraser Forum, American Outlook, The American and the online editions of Weekly Standard, National Review and American Interest. Beyond his work in opinion journalism, Dowd has served as an adjunct professor and university lecturer; congressional aide; and administrator, researcher and writer at leading think tanks, including the Hudson Institute, Sagamore Institute and Fraser Institute. An award-winning writer, Dowd has been interviewed by Fox News Channel, Cox News Service, The Washington Times, The National Post, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation and numerous radio programs across North America. In addition, his work has been quoted by and/or reprinted in The Guardian, CBS News, BBC News and the Council on Foreign Relations. Dowd holds degrees from Butler University and Indiana University. Follow him at twitter.com/alanwdowd.

ASCF News

Scott Tilley is a Senior Fellow at the American Security Council Foundation, where he writes the “Technical Power” column, focusing on the societal and national security implications of advanced technology in cybersecurity, space, and foreign relations.

He is an emeritus professor at the Florida Institute of Technology. Previously, he was with the University of California, Riverside, Carnegie Mellon University’s Software Engineering Institute, and IBM. His research and teaching were in the areas of computer science, software & systems engineering, educational technology, the design of communication, and business information systems.

He is president and founder of the Center for Technology & Society, president and co-founder of Big Data Florida, past president of INCOSE Space Coast, and a Space Coast Writers’ Guild Fellow.

He has authored over 150 academic papers and has published 28 books (technical and non-technical), most recently Systems Analysis & Design (Cengage, 2020), SPACE (Anthology Alliance, 2019), and Technical Justice (CTS Press, 2019). He wrote the “Technology Today” column for FLORIDA TODAY from 2010 to 2018.

He is a popular public speaker, having delivered numerous keynote presentations and “Tech Talks” for a general audience. Recent examples include the role of big data in the space program, a four-part series on machine learning, and a four-part series on fake news.

He holds a Ph.D. in computer science from the University of Victoria (1995).

Contact him at stilley@cts.today.

China - Dark Money

Monday, October 2, 2023

Written by Laurence F Sanford, Senior Analyst ASCF

Categories: ASCF News ASCF Articles

Comments: 0

Red Dollar

China - Dark Money

Dark money from China is subverting America. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is funneling billions of dollars to capture and influence elite political, economic, educational, and media leaders throughout the world.

“China Said To Invest Billions to Mislead The World” is the headline in a Wall Street Journal article dated September 29, 2023. The U.S. State Department’s Global Engagement Center said, “Beijing has invested billions of dollars to construct an information ecosystem in which PRC (People’s Republic of China) propaganda and disinformation gain traction and become dominant.

Money talks, and Chinese money is talking loudly. Dark money is defined as influencing political outcomes where the source of the money is not disclosed. The most common type of dark money sourcing in the U.S. is the 501(c)(4) non-profit organization, which can receive unlimited donations from individuals and organizations without public disclosure. The monies collected can then be spent on “issue advocacy” versus “electioneering issues” and thus be exempt from federal election finance laws. “Issues” fall under First Amendment protections.

In 2018, Joe Biden co-authored an article in Politico titled “Foreign Dark Money is Threatening American Democracy.” He wrote that “when it comes to foreign dark money, we remain woefully unprepared.” The Treasury Department reported that in 2015, $300 billion was laundered through the U.S. The amount of CCP monies flowing directly to 501(c)(4) non-profits is unknown to the public.

In the 2020 election cycle, more than $1 billion was spent in dark, undisclosed money. Of that amount, $514 million was spent to help Democrats, and $200 million was spent to help Republicans. Joe Biden received $174 million in anonymous contributions, over six times as much as Donald Trump’s $25 million. The Sixteen Thirty Fund, an affiliate of liberal donor-advised fund Arabella Advisors, spent $410 million in 2020 (more than the Democratic National Committee itself), primarily focused on helping Democrats defeat President Donald Trump and win back control of the United States Senate.

The Chinese embassy in Washington, D.C., actively lobbies against Congressional bills that enhance American competitiveness against China. The Chinese threaten American companies that they will lose market share and revenue if the bills pass. Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian said the bills distorted facts and were based on “Cold War thinking.” Zhao left unsaid that the CCP has been conducting unrestricted warfare against the United States since the 1949 founding of the PRC.

Summary

The CCP is spending billions of dollars to subvert and weaken the U.S. externally and internally.

The CCP is gaining global influence with its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) of bribing foreign elites and funding major infrastructure projects. The terms of the BRI loans are opaque and onerous. Poor countries later find many of the projects uneconomic, poorly constructed, and with interest payments that bankrupt the country. Meanwhile, the elites are basking in Swiss bank account monies.

The U.S. State Department accused China of using “deceptive and coercive methods” to shape the global information environment by acquiring stakes in foreign print, media, and television networks. The same strategy is being used to gain control of port facilities worldwide, the most prominent example being the control of Panama Canal ports.

In the U.S., the CCP is funding, donating, and buying elites in universities, media, Wall Street, and Washington, D.C. Recently, CCP hackers accessed over 60,000 emails from State Department files. The campaign against the U.S. is all-encompassing, with the fusion of all Chinese organizations and individuals working together to achieve world domination.

Action

1. Recognize the CCP is no friend of the U.S. or democracy. The CCP is a totalitarian Marxist dictatorship that rules China with the goal of world domination. Aiding and abetting the CCP has not opened up China to democracy. If anything, economic prosperity aided by intellectual and property theft of American know-how has strengthened the state security apparatus.
2. The U.S. should have as its foreign policy “we win, they lose.” We should implement and enlarge gray zone activities to encourage the Chinese people to rid China of the CCP Marxist terror organization. Marxism is, after all, a European ideology. Gray zone activities to include:
a. Call out CCP atrocities - genocide in Xinjiang; persecution of Christians, Muslims, and Fulan Gong; and organ transplants.
b. Support countries bordering the East and South China Seas against CCP territorial seizure.
c. Invest in a propaganda infrastructure that educates the world on CCP perfidy.
3. Reciprocity - If the CCP doesn’t allow Americans to operate in China, then America should not allow the Communist Chinese Party to operate in America. Thus, no CCP media (TikTok) or sales of land, high-tech equipment, or electric vehicles (EVs) in the U.S.
4. Decouple the U.S. economy from China. Stop subsidizing CCP solar, wind, and EV technologies. Support American carbon-based industries and nuclear energy.
5. Invest in the military and intelligence agencies. Purge the organizations of Marxist grievance programs, which do nothing but increase divisiveness and weaken cohesion.

Peace Through Strength!

Laurence F. Sanford
Senior Analyst
American Security Council Foundation
www.ascf.us

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