For many Westerners, discussions of Chinese influence operations focus on espionage, hacking, copyrights, or comparisons to Russian disinformation campaigns. Chinese Confucius Institutes are compared to Russia Today and other social media influence operations. Caustic commenters such as Chen Weihua are compared with Maria Zakharova or even Russian ex-president-turned online troll Dimitri Medvedev. But from culture to policy, Chinese influence operations are fundamentally misunderstood.
The institution that best showcases the unique perils of Chinese espionage is its United Front Work Department (UFWD). The UFWD has become an increasingly important component of China's foreign policy under Xi Jinping. Since taking power, Xi Jinping has repeatedly emphasized the importance of united front work, describing it as a ”magic weapon” for achieving China's national objectives. Understanding the UFWD is essential because it often does not function like other intelligence services.
The UFWD’s product is alliances; it builds coalitions with groups that are not formally part of the Chinese Communist Party. Business elites, intellectuals, ethnic minorities, overseas Chinese, and many others are targets for engagement. The UFWD is a core component of CCP political strategy, emphasizing cooperation, persuasion, and co-optation rather than outright coercion. This does not necessarily require illicit methods.
Broader geopolitical positioning explains the UFWD’s modus operandi. China, while confronting problems, is more than capable of rising within existing international frameworks. Russia, by every soft power metric, is a declining power. Russia’s return to a preeminent great power thus requires it to destroy the international system, whereas China seeks to capture it.
This is why UFWD activities appear mundane and stabilizing. Conferences, cultural exchanges, business forums, educational partnerships, and community organizations serve genuine purposes. The challenge for analysts is that influence efforts are often embedded within legitimate frameworks. Rather than operating primarily through deception, the UFWD frequently works through relationship building, incentive structures, and the cultivation of long-term networks.
A useful example of the UFWD's approach is the network surrounding Neville Roy Singham. Singham, a former venture capitalist and self-proclaimed Socialist residing in Shanghai, has attracted scrutiny from journalists, researchers, and policymakers because of his connections to organizations that have promoted narratives favorable to Beijing while maintaining extensive relationships across activist, academic, and civil society networks.
Singham, for his part, denies his involvement in the accusations levied against him by the House Judiciary Committee and various journalists. Until Singham’s activities are part of the historical record, nobody can know for sure. Here is the critical thing to understand: UFWD work doesn’t require him to lie. It works better when someone doesn’t.
Taking a specific example, a group that has included at least one known Singham network entity in its own efforts to influence, forming a tactical alliance that may in turn be influencing its positions, is the Armenian National Committee of America.
On November 7, 2025, Senator Tom Cotton wrote a letter to then-Attorney General Pam Bondi asking that an investigation be conducted into Code Pink, which Cotton alleged has “received funding from groups aligned with the Communist Chinese government and partnered with designated foreign terrorist organizations.”
On November 12, 2025, ANCA announced that it was the joint leader of a coalition opposing Azerbaijan’s role in the Gaza Security Force envisioned to work under the Gaza Board of Peace. Among the members of that coalition is Code Pink. As extensively reported by The New York Times and others, Code Pink’s co-founder is married to Singham, and the organization receives extensive funding from him. When ANCA pressed its case against Azerbaijan on the grounds of concern for “Palestinian lives and land” while saying nothing about the Uyghurs, the double standard became hard to dismiss.
It must be noted that this is not the only topic on which ANCA reiterates Chinese rhetoric. ANCA also criticized Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s visit to Yerevan as “election interference” and opposes the Trump Road to Peace and Prosperity (TRIPP), a transportation corridor which is the backbone of the peace deal in the Caucasus. It is Washington’s key policy and a branch of the Middle Corridor, a key artery connecting the Far East with the EU.
Whether one views these activities as advocacy, influence operations, or something in between, the case demonstrates an important reality: the UFWD operates through pre-existing organizations and personal relationships rather than exclusively in covert ways. The significance of the Singham case lies not in its resemblance to a traditional espionage operation. Rather, it highlights how even when no laws are broken, influence can emerge through networks of relationships built over years. In Singham’s case, an investigation may be in order to determine whether he broke the law, but nobody should be surprised if nothing untoward is found.
The Chinese model of influence isn’t pure espionage. It is better understood as a mechanism through which China attempts to shape and co-opt the global environment in ways that make its growing power more palatable. Its activities are more akin to a Chamber of Commerce than an intelligence agency. Whether that strategy succeeds remains an open question, but its ambitions are increasingly global in scope and impossible to ignore.
Wesley Alexander Hill is the Assistant Director of the Energy, Growth, and Security Program at the International Tax and Investment Center. Wesley is an expert on grand strategy, geo-economics, and international relations with a regional specialization in China, Eurasia, and Sub-Saharan Africa. Wesley has unique expertise concerning Chinese influence in Central Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa, Chinese foreign and macroeconomic policy, as well as Sino-American competition.
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