China launches orchestrated campaign to destroy US institutions: Attorney General Barr

"As China's government loses credibility around the world, the Department of Justice has seen more and more PRC officials and their proxies reaching out to corporate leaders and inveighing them to favor policies and actions favored by the Chinese Communist Party," he said. "Their objective varies, but their pitch is generally the same: the businessperson has economic interests in China, and there is a suggestion that things will go better (or worse) for them depending on their response to the PRC’s request," Barr said.

The Chinese Communist Party has launched an orchestrated campaign to exploit the openness of American institutions to destroy them, US Attorney General William Barr said on Thursday, asserting that people are now more attuned than ever to the threat China poses to their lives and livelihoods. Barr launched a scathing attack on the intentions and practices of China ranging from theft of intellectual property, to coercion of US companies and penetrating American academic institutions.

In a globalized world, American corporations and universities alike may view themselves as global citizens, rather than American institutions. But they should remember that what allowed them to succeed in the first place was the American free enterprise system, the rule of law, and the security afforded by America's economic, technological, and military strength, he said. Globalization does not always point in the direction of greater freedom. A world marching to the beat of Communist China's drums will not be a hospitable one for institutions that depend on free markets, free trade, or the free exchange of ideas, he added.

"There was a time American companies understood that. They saw themselves as American and proudly defended American values," he said. "The CCP has launched an orchestrated campaign, across all of its many tentacles in Chinese government and society, to exploit the openness of our institutions in order to destroy them," Barr said in a major policy speech on China, the third in the series of similar remarks being made by top officials of the Trump administration.

The two previous ones being US National Security Advisor Robert O'Brien and FBI Director Christopher Wray. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is also scheduled to deliver another major speech on China in the coming days. Barr said that to secure a world of freedom and prosperity for children and grandchildren, the free world will need its own version of the whole-of-society approach, in which the public and private sectors maintain their essential separation but work together collaboratively to resist domination and to win the contest for the commanding heights of the global economy.

"America has done that before. If we rekindle our love and devotion for our country and each other, I am confident that we—the American people, American government, and American business together—can do it again. Our freedom depends on it," he said in his remarks on China policy at the Gerald R Ford Presidential Museum. Observing that over the years, corporations such as Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, and Apple have shown themselves all too willing to collaborate with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), Barr said that the CCP has long used public threats of retaliation and barred market access to exert influence.

More recently, however, the CCP has also stepped up behind-the-scenes efforts to cultivate and coerce American business executives to further its political objectives — efforts that are all the more pernicious because they are largely hidden from public view, Barr said. "As China's government loses credibility around the world, the Department of Justice has seen more and more PRC officials and their proxies reaching out to corporate leaders and inveighing them to favor policies and actions favored by the Chinese Communist Party," he said.

"Their objective varies, but their pitch is generally the same: the businessperson has economic interests in China, and there is a suggestion that things will go better (or worse) for them depending on their response to the PRC's request," Barr said. Privately pressuring or courting American corporate leaders to promote policies (or politicians) presents a significant threat, because hiding behind American voices allows the Chinese government to elevate its influence and put a "friendly face" on pro-regime policies, he said.

According to Barr, the legislator or policymaker who hears from a fellow American is properly more sympathetic to that constituent than to a foreigner. "And by masking its participation in our political process, the PRC avoids accountability for its influence efforts and the public outcry that might result, if its lobbying were exposed," he asserted. Barr said that the ultimate ambition of China's rulers was not to trade with the United States.

"It is to raid the United States," he said. "If you are an American business leader, appeasing the PRC may bring short-term rewards. But in the end, the PRC's goal is to replace you," he added. Although Americans hoped that trade and investment would liberalize China's political system, the fundamental character of the regime has never changed, he told the audience.

As its ruthless crackdown of Hong Kong demonstrates once again, China is no closer to democracy today than it was in 1989 when tanks confronted pro-democracy protesters in Tiananmen Square. It remains an authoritarian, one-party state in which the Communist Party wields absolute power, unchecked by popular elections, the rule of law, or an independent judiciary, he alleged. "The CCP surveils its own people and assigns them social credit scores, employs an army of government censors, tortures dissidents, and persecutes religious and ethnic minorities, including a million Uighurs detained in indoctrination and labor camps," Barr said. "If what happened in China stayed in China, that would all be bad enough. But instead of America changing China, China is leveraging its economic power to change America," he said.