Commentary: The CCP’s Decades-Long Effort to Influence the U.S. Judicial System

(Minghui.org) Located on opposite sides of the earth, the difference between the U.S. and communist China is like day and night. One example is the political and justice system.

To protect democracy and citizens’ rights, the U.S. government is separated into the legislative, executive, and judicial branches. This system of checks and balances on the federal and state levels effectively prevent abuse of power.

The Chinese Constitution, on the other hand, lists leadership by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in Article 1. Furthermore, the CCP can interpret and abuse laws at will, citing political reasons. This happened many times during the regime’s numerous political campaigns, the Tiananmen Square Massacre in 1989, and the persecution of Falun Gong since 1999. The CCP essentially considers China’s judicial system a tool to control citizens as needed.

Rooted in communist ideology, the CCP has no plan to adopt democracy or separation of powers as the U.S. does. In following the Communist Manifesto, the CCP takes “liberating” the world as its mission. This makes the U.S. and its judicial system a major roadblock for the CCP.

Unfortunately, through its systematic brainwashing, infiltration, and political pressure, both during and after the cold war, the CCP has made significant progress toward its goal. Below are some examples.

 

Stockholm Syndrome in the 1950s

Mao Zedong once instructed Wu Lengxi, then president of the CCP’s Xinhua News Agency, in 1955, “You need to take control of the earth so that the entire world can hear our voice.” It turned out this policy went well beyond the CCP news media.

Ying Ruocheng, a Chinese stage and screen actor as well as translator, wrote in his autobiography Voices Carry about how he and his wife worked as state security agents to befriend foreigners in exchange for information. After he reported that visiting professor W. Allyn Rickett his wife Adele were spies, Beijing mayor Peng Zhen asked him to collect evidence.

Wu organised a party at his home and invited many guests, including the Rickett couple. While encouraging them to freely comment on current affairs, Wu secretly wrote down the couples’ remarks and submitted them to state security authorities, which led to their arrest in July 1951.

At that time, the CCP had already launched the Thought Reform campaign. Exercising sophisticated brainwashing skills, CCP officials instructed the judicial system to provide the couple with some comforts that ordinary inmates did not have, in addition to intimidation and enticement to cooperate with the CCP. The couple repented with gratitude in a manner similar to Stockholm syndrome (although the term was not coined until the 1970s) and turned to communism.

Upon their release in 1955 and subsequent return to the U.S., the couple published Prisoners of Liberation in 1957, highly praising the superiority of socialism, especially its judicial system. At that time, McCarthyism (also known as the Second Red Scare) had just ended, and the book helped spread communist propaganda as Mao had expected.

 

Far-Reaching Influence

In 1995, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) suspected that the Chinese had stolen the design for the W88, a highly sophisticated nuclear warhead, and used that to successfully test a neutron bomb in 1988. The DOE opened up an administrative inquiry into U.S. nuclear laboratory security, and the FBI joined the investigation in 1996.

Both the FBI and DOE focused on Wen Ho Lee, a Taiwanese scientist who worked at Los Alamos, because of suspicious behavior he had exhibited over the years. He had first appeared on the FBI’s radar screen during the Tiger Trap investigation in 1982.

Later on, Lee was found to have sent documents to Taiwan that were stamped with a NOFORN (no foreign distribution) designation. He also failed to report (as required) a meeting with a Chinese scientist until ten years after the fact. In addition, he moved weapons design files to an unclassified network, making them accessible from outside the lab. Based on the these pieces of evidence, the FBI arrested Lee in December 1999.

After Lee’s arrest, the CCP mobilised extensive forces to influence the American judiciary. It used the Overseas Chinese Federation, the Chinese Students and Scholars Association, Chinese Americans in the U.S., and media public opinion label the arrest of Lee as racial discrimination and racial persecution. At that time, then-President Bill Clinton was also actively lobbying the Congress and the international community for China’s accession to the World Trade Organization (WTO).

In the end, Lee was only charged with improper handling of restricted data, one of the original 59 counts he was indicted with. He pleaded guilty as part of a plea agreement.

 

Deep Infiltration

In 2013, the CCP leadership proposed “a community of common destiny for mankind.” The official translation was later changed to “a community with a shared future for mankind” to soften its tone. In essence, it meant establishing a new world order led by the CCP.

Penetrating the U.S. through so-called legal warfare is a critical step and a long-term strategy. Antonio Graceffo, economics researcher and university professor, wrote about this strategy in his book Beyond the Belt and Road: China’s Global Economic Expansion. More specifically, the CCP would bring some loyal followers to the U.S., provide them full scholarships and funding to attend law school, obtain law licenses, and set up law firms. The CCP could then send more people to these law firms.

Although these CCP agents are well versed in U.S. laws and policies, their minds have been instilled with the CCP’s ideology and Chinese nationalism. The CCP could use them for its own gain and pressure them by using their relatives in China as bargaining chips. As a result, they are bound to serve the CCP.

The CCP can also use these agents to set up cross-border business departments in well-known American law firms to complete the tasks that the CCP wants them to complete. They would indirectly or directly provide legal services that harm U.S. interests and benefit cross-border business of Chinese state-owned enterprises, military-civilian integration enterprises, or CCP elites. They could help Chinese companies acquire, go public, and monopolize the market in the U.S., as well as evade U.S. sanctions.

 

Curbing the CCP’s Infiltration

Having persecuted Falun Gong in China since 1999, the CCP is now exporting the persecution to the U.S. by launching a legal war to attack Falun Gong and Shen Yun.

The reason the CCP has expended so much effort in suppressing Falun Gong is that Falun Gong practitioners cannot be bribed or intimidated into carrying out the CCP’s goals. Rather, Falun Gong practitioners simply want to elevate themselves spiritually by following the principles of Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance. But faith and independent thought are things the CCP cannot tolerate, because its totalitarian rule depends on controlling people’s mind. If everyone thinks freely, the Party’s ideological grip would be lost.

Falun Gong has no enemies. Those who serve as the CCP’s agents in carrying out legal warfare against Shen Yun and Falun Gong practitioners are essentially helping the CCP to achieve its goal, whether intentionally or unintentionally.