China Spent $64 Million In 2020 For Influence Operations In The US

US media is report­ing that Chi­na has become the top spender on for­eign influ­ence oper­a­tions in the US, with Chi­nese for­eign agent spend­ing sky­rock­et­ing from just over $10 mil­lion in 2016 to near­ly $64 mil­lion in 2020. Accord­ing to an Axios report:

May 11, 2021 New for­eign-agent fil­ings are final­ly detail­ing a mas­sive Bei­jing pro­pa­gan­da oper­a­tion that’s fueled a six­fold increase in dis­closed Chi­nese for­eign influ­ence efforts in the Unit­ed States in recent years. Why it mat­ters: Pro­pa­gan­da is cen­tral to Chi­na ful­fill­ing its geopo­lit­i­cal aspi­ra­tions, and its efforts to sow dis­cord and dis­in­for­ma­tion in the U.S. have very real con­se­quences for the Amer­i­can busi­ness, polit­i­cal and social cli­mates.      Accord­ing to the Cen­ter for Respon­sive Pol­i­tics, Chi­nese for­eign agent spend­ing has sky­rock­et­ed from just over $10 mil­lion in 2016 to near­ly $64 mil­lion last year.

Read the rest here.

For­eign Lob­by, a watch­dog, report­ed last week that China’s Xin­hua news agency recent­ly reg­is­tered as a for­eign agent three years after US Jus­tice Depart­ment instruct­ed it to do so.

The Glob­al Influ­ence Oper­a­tions Report (GIOR) cov­ers Chi­na, known for its use of “soft pow­er” to expand glob­al influence.