FIRST ON FOX: A decades-long good friend and mentee of Vice President Kamala Harris, who’s working for Congress in California, has been buddies with a high govt of a CCP entrance group for over a decade, a Fox Information Digital evaluate discovered.
In early 2022, a yr earlier than James Chau grew to become the president of the China-United States Alternate Basis (CUSEF), he wrote on Twitter, “Belated greatest needs to my good friend and sister [Lateefah Simon] as she builds on her years is [sic] service [Akonadi Foundation] to steer Meadow Fund.”
“These are complicated instances — but additionally instances through which talent and compassion depend much more,” he continued. “Wanting ahead to seeing the deep impression of your work.”
Simon, who’s at the moment working for Rep. Barbara Lee’s Home seat and was a key speaker on the 2024 DNC conference on behalf of Harris, responded, “I really like you James. Hong Kong this summer season!”
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Lateefah Simon (Middle), a longtime good friend and mentee of Vice President Kamala Harris (Proper), has been buddies with James Chau (Left), the president of a CCP group, for over a decade. (Fox Information)
“You might have the freehold on my coronary heart,” he responded.
In one other social media publish, Chau posted an image of what seems to be an artwork exhibit of a tree with dozens of leaves and a caption that reads, “What are you THANKFUL for?” Chau stated the tree is “not giant sufficient” and tagged Simon, prompting her to reply with a pink coronary heart emoji.
The 2 Twitter exchanges, together with a number of different social media posts from Chau, got here at a time when Chau was already actively working for CUSEF. Chau “joined CUSEF in 2018” and was “working with its founder The Hon. Tung Chee-hwa” earlier than he grew to become the group’s president in 2023, in keeping with his CUSEF bio.
Fox Information Digital has extensively reported on Tung Chee-hwa, who served as a vice chairman of the Chinese language Folks’s Political Consultative Convention (CPPCC), a key a part of the CCP’s united entrance system, which operates to advance the CCP’s pursuits at residence and overseas.
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One report particulars how Julia Wilson, a Black public relations advisor, was paid over $1 million by Chee-hwa’s CUSEF to assist the Chinese language authorities study Black Individuals and acquire affect with Traditionally Black Faculties and Universities (HBCUs) and Black leaders.Â
“In 2009, the previous chief govt of Hong Kong [Tung Chee-hwa] visited me in my workplace together with his workers from the China-United States Alternate Basis, and so they needed to understand how we acquired a Black president,” Wilson, whose workplace is throughout the road from the White Home, advised faculty college students throughout a 2017 presentation. “They have been saying, ‘We do not know something about Black folks. So are you able to write us a white paper and share it with us? How did Black folks get sufficient energy to vote a Black man into workplace?’ So that they actually wanted an summary of our historical past. Who’re we? Who’re African Individuals?”
Tung Chee-hwa is the vice chairman of the twelfth Chinese language Folks’s Political Consultative Convention (CPPCC). (YouTube/Screenshot)
CUSEF’s most up-to-date annual report, which was printed in July, reveals how the “unbiased, non-profit and non-governmental basis” is closely influenced by the CCP, starting from advisers and companions to donors. One of many high companions of CUSEF is the Folks’s Affiliation for Friendship with International International locations, which was beforehand labeled as a “Beijing-based group tasked with co-opting subnational governments” and looking for to “instantly and malignly affect state and native leaders to advertise the PRC’s international agenda,” in keeping with a 2022 report from the Biden administration’s Director of Nationwide Intelligence (DNI).
One other companion on CUSEF’s annual report is the China Ministry of International Affairs, an instrumental a part of the CCP’s equipment that commonly coordinates with high CCP branches and leaders, in keeping with its web site. Different companions embody high Chinese language and American universities like Princeton, Georgetown, Harvard and Columbia. Sidwell Pals College, the elite boarding faculty the place former President Obama’s daughters and President Biden’s grandchildren attended, was additionally on the checklist.
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A number of of CUSEF’s donors, which embody Chinese language billionaires, even have CCP ties. Wang Jianlin, the billionaire chairman of the Wanda Group, is a CCP member, and served within the seventeenth Nationwide Congress of the Communist Social gathering of China. He’s additionally a longtime member of the CPPCC. Bernard Chan, one other donor listed in CUSEF’s annual report, seems to be the identical Bernard Chan who served because the Hong Kong Deputy to the Nationwide Folks’s Congress of the Folks’s Republic of China, the very best organ of state energy within the CCP, for 15 years.
A number of members of CUSEF’s governing board even have CCP ties, together with Peter Woo, who’s at the moment a member of the Standing Committee of the eleventh CPPCC. Liu Changle, the founding father of the Chinese language state-owned Phoenix Satellite tv for pc Tv, additionally has a number of CCP ties, in keeping with CUSEF’s web site.
Chau, who was beforehand an anchor for China’s state-owned China Central Tv (CCTV), has posted about Tung a number of instances on his X account and has interviewed him a number of instances. In 2017, whereas serving as a contributor for China’s state-owned CGTN, Chau sat down for an interview with Tung and mentioned U.S.-China relations. A yr later, he began working with Tung at CUSEF.
BART Board President Lateefah Simon speaks throughout a press convention in regards to the BART ambassadors on Monday, February 10, 2020 in Oakland, Calif. (Lea Suzuki/The San Francisco Chronicle by way of Getty Photos)
Earlier this summer season on the DNC, Simon mirrored on her longtime friendship with Harris, together with her expertise working alongside her within the early 2000s.
“When she sees you, she really sees you,” Simon stated in August on the 2024 DNC. “She is the perfect amongst us. After working with Kamala Harris day in and time out for 5 years to create applications that supported younger folks to get out of the prison justice system as soon as and for all with good jobs, with alternative, she needed to get to the foundation explanation for a damaged prison justice system.”
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Chau and Simon met in San Francisco in 2008 whereas working to fight HIV and have been buddies through the years, together with connecting over her husband and Chau’s father each passing away weeks aside, in keeping with the opening phase of a 2020 interview between them, which was a part of CUSEF’s “The China Present” digital platform. On the finish of the interview, which revolved across the pandemic and the “inequities in a healthcare system” for folks of coloration, Simon stated, “I really like you dearly, Mr. James. Let’s speak extra.”
Months later, Chau referred to as Simon “sensible” in a Twitter publish, saying he was “watching this vital dialogue on the historical past of black organising [sic] in Oakland—one of many facilities of worldwide civil rights.”
In 2019, CUSEF printed a publish on their web site, highlighting how they’ve engaged with Black Individuals “in cooperation with the Congressional Black Caucus and different civil society organizations specializing in the [B]lack neighborhood within the U.S.”
Fox Information Digital reached out to CUSEF, the Simon marketing campaign and the Harris marketing campaign, however didn’t obtain any responses.
