What is China’s ‘United Front’ agenda?
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Hello and welcome to Chinese Whispers with me, Cindy Yu. Every episode, I’ll be talking to journalists, experts and long-time China watchers about the latest in Chinese politics, society and more. There’ll be a smattering of history to catch you up on the background knowledge and some context as well. How do the Chinese see these issues?
Now, whenever spy scandals about China break in the West, one organisation often comes up, the United Front. So what is this mysterious organisation that Mao had dubbed one of the party’s three magic weapons? How much does it advance the party’s agenda? I’m joined today by Charlie Parton, who is a former British diplomat in Beijing, a former advisor to the Foreign Affairs Select Committee and now chief advisor to the Council on Geostrategies China Observatory. Charlie, welcome back to Chinese Whispers. Thank you very much.
So the United Front is an arm of the Chinese Communist Party, but more widely, it’s a strategy. So let’s start with the principles of that strategy. What are we talking about when we talk about a united front? I think that’s very wise because the United Front work department has become the whipping boy of the press. And actually, we need to see what it’s really about.
The United Front strategy says that you identify the main enemy. So back in the early days of the Communist Party’s struggle to come to power, that was the KMT. Nowadays, you might say that it’s the United States in the global struggle. So you identify that main enemy and you attempt to move the allies and those who are friendly to the main enemy to a neutral position and those who are in a neutral position to a friendly position to China or to the Chinese Communist Party’s aims. Often you start with the easier targets. You’ll see that China’s been putting a lot of effort into some of the smaller, more or less developed nations because they’re more easily influenced and brought on site.
But ultimately, when it comes, say, to the United Kingdom, the United Front strategy would be to move us from amity and alliance with Americans to start with into a neutral position. But actually, out of its 12 bureaus, most of them are domestic facing. And of course, we in the West hear about it mostly in terms of the China-West struggle. But domestically, let’s start with that first. What are its purposes and targets?
I think that’s a very important point because we always think of it as something that’s out stalking abroad. Whereas, in fact, of course, it’s a very important department. I would say one of the six main departments in the Chinese Communist Party. It is right up there as one of the six. And looking at delving slightly into its history in the struggle against the KMT, Mao identified what he called three magic weapons. And that was the party itself, the People’s Liberation Army and the United Front.
And there it was doing the United Front strategy of peeling off those who supported the KMT and bringing them into support of the Chinese Communist Party, even though they weren’t communists or party members. And so now within China, there are probably the United Front is in charge of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference. I got that out without a stumble, but it’s difficult. And that is, in a sense, as it says on the tune, a consultative body.
And the Chinese Communist Party, Marxist-Leninist, though it is, does consult its people. I mean, it may not then go in the direction that the people may or may not wish, but it certainly wants to consult them because it needs to head off any unrest or likely causes of instability. Because its main aim is to stay in power. Politicians like to stay in power and they have the ability to do so.
So the people’s consultative system throughout China at four of the five levels of government, provincial, provinces, prefecture, city, county, town, and then right down to the sort of township and the rural levels. At four of those, there are these consultative bodies, the biggest one, of course, and most famous being the national one, which meets in full plenum once a year at the two meetings. Now, that system employs somewhere in the region of 620,000 people. Right. That shows you how important it is.
And that’s a state arm of the United Front, which is a party organ, technically. Is that right? No, I mean, I suppose you could say yes. But I mean, these days, the distinction between what is party and what is state have been, frankly, eroded. And within that, United Front now then, because the communists are in power, they don’t have to fight the KMT anymore. Who are the people who are non-communist members, non-communist people who are within its kind of lines of sight in China?
So if you look at the 12 departments of the United Front Work Department, and here the likelihood of my remembering all 12 is probably non-existent. But it’s sort of non-party intellectuals, non-party people, religious people, ethnic minorities, students who are broad and have come back, Hong Kong and Macau people, Taiwan people, the private sector, very important indeed, business sector. And then there’s always, as in every Chinese sort of document and organisation, other people who need to be united to the cause, basically.
So a catch-all. And also these nominal oppositional parties, which is something… And of course, the eight democratic parties. How could I forget the eight democratic parties? Because supposedly China is a democracy and there are these nominal parties that effectively don’t have power. No, they don’t. And they follow the lead of the Chinese Communist Party.
And they are slightly thematically… I mean, if you’re a member of the medical profession, you’ll join one of them. And there’s a Taiwan one as well. And scientists and intellectuals will join another. So, yes, they are sort of, again, there to sing in chorus with the Chinese Communist Party. And so is it fair to see the United Front as a bit of like a soft arm of state power in the sense that it’s not exercising hard power, it’s not locking anyone up, it’s not what the Ministry of Public Security does, but it does kind of influence thoughts.
It kind of softens up any dissent or, as you say, neutralizes them. Well, it has two roles, I suppose, that the whole system. I mean, one is to pull in views and ideas and that idea of consultation, but also to promulgate the line and make sure that everybody knows the direction that the Communist Party insists that they go in. So is that soft power rather than hard power? Yes, I suppose it is.
Well, I guess just in some of the reporting, it seems like some of the domestic projects, at least, can almost be counted as community outreach. Foreign Policy ran a really good article on this a couple of years ago about how the United Front was funding things like roads or amusement parks, mainly in minority ethnic regions, in order to say, look how good the Chinese Communist Party is. Because, you know, that almost feels, it’s very different, I think, what the United Front brings to mind in the Western kind of consciousness when we talk about it.
You know, it almost feels like so nebulous and almost bloated as a government department to say, oh, our work is just to make people like us. I just wonder about what the methods are and what the kind of KPIs are, what are the metrics for success for them? That’s about what the KPIs are. I don’t know. I guess they don’t need to do that because they don’t necessarily apply for budget in the same way.
But in a sense also, don’t forget that all China’s officials will have United Front objectives in their annual work plans. So in that sense, binding the non-party people to the party can encompass a whole range of activities depending on the energies, enthusiasms and creativity of carders on the ground who will get brownie points or end of year approbation for what they’ve done. So, yes, it will be very well funded. It’s a very important thing because it’s a great arm in maintaining the stability of the regime and ensuring that the non-party members accept what the party wants, the direction that the party wants the country to go.
Yeah, and it has waned and waxed in popularity or rather in importance over the time of its history, even though Mao called it one of his three magic weapons. But under Xi Jinping, has it revived in importance again? Because Wang Huning, who is the strategist behind three successive Chinese leaders, has been put in charge of it. Correct. And don’t forget Wang Huning is a member of the Seven Man Politbuhrer. So, yes, its fortunes have come and go.
And during the Cultural Revolution, of course, it was dissolved and was only reconstituted in 1979. But Xi Jinping has put a lot of emphasis on it. In 2015, there was a big conference where he made it very clear that its powers were going to be increased. And over the coming years, it was. I think in 2018, for instance, it took over overall responsibility for the Ethnic Affairs Commission and the body in charge of religion, amongst others.
And also the overseas Chinese office as well. All then became part of the United Front system. I mean, they were performing United Front functions before, but they were now administratively directly under the United Front and controlled by the United Front. So let’s talk about that foreign arm then. You’ve mentioned the overseas Chinese. What is the United Front strategy when it comes to overseas Chinese communities?
I mean, let’s just step back one in the sense that as China has gone global in all aspects, not just trade and investment, but in many others culturally and in terms of promoting its own soft power. So the systems that the party has found useful within China are extended outside China. And the United Front, of course, is one of the, I would actually say, 10, but we probably don’t have time to go through all the 10 methods of the way that the party is advancing towards its second centennial goal, which is to basically dethrone America as the number one superpower and order the world so that it better reflects China’s interests and values.
So in that sense, the main aim, one might say, of the United Front abroad is to undermine America and put China up there as the number one. And that means detaching from, as we said at the start, detaching from support of the Americans, their current allies or those that follow some of their policies. And so what are some of the methods it tries to use us in doing that?
Well, quite a lot, actually. And I think, first of all, one might say that it’s important to say that, as ever, the survival and stability of the regime is number one. So even abroad, where there are many Chinese students, academics, businesses and others, probably the first role of the United Front abroad is to keep an eye on those and to make sure that they’re not picking up values and habits that might later threaten the Chinese state when they go back.
But also to encourage them to go back. I mean, these are people who’ve picked up useful skills and training and can serve China in its development. So that, I think, is one of the main roles abroad. What else, well, one would say to ensure that the narrative that the Chinese Communist Party puts out about itself is much more accepted abroad. Of course, it uses external propaganda. But the whole point about the United Front is that it’s using the people within the country to do its work for it, in a sense.
The old Chinese phrase of borrowing a boat to put out to sea is applicable. But bringing alongside our politicians, our media, much more to support China and certainly not to attack China. Sometimes to obscure what the Chinese Communist Party is doing abroad by putting a different spin on it. I would say that one of its main roles also is as almost a forward radar for things like people who could be useful to the Chinese Communist Party’s aims. Now, science and technology comes immediately to mind. It’s a very, very important aim. And part of the role of the United Front will be to ensure that those in a position to work out where science and technology is in the UK are reporting back to it and then back to those in China to exploit those needs. Maybe to invite one of our top scientists to China to give a lecture and talk about things that perhaps he or she would be better, you know, might be a little bit sensitive. So I think that’s a very important aim.
I do think it’s right to regard the United Front Work Department as a… It’s not an intelligence service by any means. It’s not like the CIA or MI6 or whatever. But it does act as a forward radar. What do you mean when you say it’s not the same as CIA or MI6? It doesn’t run agents and it doesn’t collect classified information in the way that an intelligence service does. But on the other hand, if it’s managing to get, make contacts with scientists and technologists who could be very useful to China, perhaps on extremely sensitive stuff, including military etc., then you can say, well, the loss to the country, the UK, is probably greater through that than it might be through the leaking of a classified document.
And as you know, Cindy, as well as I, that the Chinese for information and intelligence, Qingbao, is the same word. There’s not much of a distinction between what we regard as intelligence, very classified information, but actually information that could do severe damage to us if it went to China, like some of the science and technology that we should be protecting. So the aim of the United Front Work Department would be to spot those sorts of opportunities and pass those back. And it might pass back opportunities to the Ministry of State Security or to the military intelligence or to scientific organizations with or without connections to the military or the repressive regime or just to other departments.
So let me ask a devil’s advocate question then, Charlie, how does that differ from diplomacy? Because isn’t a good diplomat when they are sent out into their posting also meant to be making contacts within the media, within the recipient government, understanding what is being said, what are the trends, and passing those back to your home government? How, if it’s not intelligence gathering in a one-to-one way, how does that differ from diplomacy? Other than the fact that the Chinese have given it a name that sounds relatively ominous. And other than the fact that they do it in a sort of quantity that is at times almost overwhelming.
Now, I think the main difference is this difference between, and I wrote a paper on this, the difference between influence and interference. Influence, for sure, we all do that. Public diplomacy, which is in essence what you’ve just described, that’s fine. But interference, I think, was best defined by the Australian Prime Minister, Malcolm Turnbull, by the three Cs: activities that are coercive, covert, and corrupting. And that, I think, is where the line has to be drawn.
It’s quite difficult to draw the line because it’s a sort of spectrum from the sorts of acceptable activities which you’ve described, the public diplomacy ones, right through to the far end of the scale to espionage and hacking and all the other things that are very obviously not acceptable. And I think drawing that line is really important. The paper you refer to, I often refer back to it, and it has a really good graph in it where you kind of do draw out where that spectrum lies.
And just to take one example, for example, we’ve talked about it on this podcast before, me and you, the Confucius Institutes. You actually think that there is an iteration of Confucius Institutes, which are okay in terms of, they fall on the influence side of things, but there are certain activities that it would do, which falls on the interference side of things. I feel like in a lot of the Western discussion about China, there isn’t that level of granularity.
So could you just explain what makes some activities okay and not others? I appreciate you at the three Cs, but for example, in a specific context like the Confucius Institutes. Yes, because the diagram you’re referring to sort of did have, if I remember rightly, a dotted line between the acceptable and unacceptable. But certain activities or institutions cross that line, and some parts of their activities, as you rightly say, are perfectly acceptable.
I think the Confucius Institutes is a very good example. I mean, there are calls to ban them, and I think that’s incorrect. Not just because immediately the Chinese Communist Party would turn around and ban the British Council, but actually, what the Confucius Institutes do has advantages. We need more China expertise. We need more Chinese language and familiarity with Chinese culture, etc. Where I think that their activities need to be more closely controlled is in their attachments to universities and the interference that they bring to universities.
Putting pressure on certain departments not to have certain activities or to have certain activities. I’ve also said in past occasions that they must be fully in line with British law, not Chinese law. The finances must be fully transparent. So if a Confucius Institute plays roughly the role of the Goethe Institute or the British Council or the Spanish Cervantes Institute, fine. I don’t think that we should object to that. And if they don’t put on activities about Tibet or Taiwan or Tiananmen, the three Ts, well, you know, we’re a free country. We can read about those. That’s really not a massive disadvantage. But if they start interfering in our university China disciplines, then that is beyond the pale.
And that is where interference as opposed to influence comes through. Yeah. And one of the examples you give for interference in that paper as well was what you called elite capture. Now, that’s come up quite frequently in the news in the UK recently because of Prince Andrew and his Chinese business associate, Yang Tenbo, with the label of elite capture being put onto what Yang was allegedly said to have done regarding Prince Andrew. What do we mean when we say a member of the elite has been captured, as it were?
Well, elite, right. I mean, we’re talking about our leaders in business, in politics. Yes, I mean, the royalty has pulling power, undoubtedly. Although he picked the worst one he thought he could have been. Top academics. But even Prince Andrew in the past certainly has had considerable convening power. And capture, I think, is a bit of a dramatic word. I mean, you know, that tends to imply that some of these people are actively going out of their way to work for the Chinese Communist Party.
But what the Chinese Communist Party does is to align their interests with those of the Chinese Communist Party, by which I mean if your business is going to flourish by pursuing a more pro-China line, if your business is not going to get certain contracts if you speak out or if you’re not seen to be talking to your ex-political pals or your ex-civil service pals in a certain way, then that is a form of… we need to invent, Cindy, another word rather than capture.
Coercion? It’s not necessarily… I mean, it can be as forceful as that. I mean, you know, if you’re running… the example comes to my mind of the United Front is very keen to ensure that the media puts out a pro-China line. Now, that’s easier, for instance, in our Chinese language press here in the UK because many of the owners of that press may have other business interests with China, and those can be promoted by the Communist Party or hindered.
But the same might apply to any British media or organ if they’ve got other pressure points which the Chinese can put on them. So, I mean, you talk about the Yangtang Bo case, but also the other one is the Christine Lee and Barry Gardner case. I mean, it’s half a million pounds to a member of the Labour Party in opposition, the shadow business spokesman, if my memory serves, who would likely become the minister. And just Christine Lee and Barry, Christine Lee, I think, is indeed a member working very hard for the United Front objectives.
Barry Gardner… well, I’ve experienced occasions when, in summing up in a certain forum, which was his paid role at the time, the summing up has been completely at odds with what the three speakers have said. It’s been very pro-China. And when I talked about this to another person who’d been on the same forum at another time, she said the same. So, sorry, these are panels that he was moderating and then his sum up was not quite…
Not moderating, but at the end had a role of to sum up the entire discussion. And so that five-minute discussion, summing up, bore no relation. Now, you know, one is not going to say he did that specifically because the money was there. But I think one has to say that if he didn’t convince that sort of attitude, maybe the United Front wouldn’t be funneling money.
I find it’s a question that we find tricky in democracy in general with other countries, too, in terms of what is justifiable lobbying, you might say, and what is undue pressure. You know, when we talk about countries such as Israel, countries such as maybe even kind of South Korea, I’ve heard as Singaporeans can be a bit pushy. You know, again, I go back to that question of, is it just because the Chinese have given it a scary name?
No, I don’t think so. And do we have an answer for it in democracy in general when it comes to foreign powers trying to do this stuff? I think we have to mention the deadly word FERS, Foreign Influence Registration Scheme, and whether China should be put on the enhanced tier when certain things follow. The basis of that is which countries are a threat to us? Now, obviously, Russia, North Korea, Iran, straight on. But is the Chinese Communist Party a threat to us? That’s a very basic question.
And I think the answer has to be yes. I’ve written papers on this, and we could spend hours discussing it. Maybe we did if we have. But if that is accepted, then I think it’s very important that there’s far greater transparency and accountability on when you are representing or helping that country. So in the area of business, let’s say, where there’s a lot of money to be made, you have to be very careful because, as we know, the Chinese Communist Party, because Xi Jinping tells us this, controls everything.
He controls all businesses. It really doesn’t matter whether it’s a state-owned company or a private one. If the Chinese Communist Party wishes or sees advantage in using it to advance its aims, when companies like Huawei, Quectel, and others immediately spring to mind, then I think it’s really important that those British people who are helping those companies should be transparent and accountable for it. Because that’s a different matter than if they’re helping an American company or a French or a Korean or a Japanese.
Yeah, no, no, that makes sense. The American kinds of influence or slightly more pressure are not kind of in the same bucket as Chinese. And just remind listeners again about FERS and what it means to be on the two different tiers, because that is a really live discussion at the moment that the government hasn’t decided on.
Well, I mean, I think the main thing is that if China is put on the enhanced tier, if you are representing the interests of China, you have to register that. You have to lock it so that it’s known. But I think the precise wording is that if you are carrying out activities at the direction of an agent of the Chinese state, isn’t that right? Or a Chinese state-owned company? It is. But if a private company can be directed by the Chinese state, and of course they are, I mean, again, Huawei, Hikvision, Quectel, New Tech, you know, they have whatever their wishes, they have no choice, and they are part of the Chinese Communist Party’s move to secure this number one position in the world to the detriment of our interests and values. Then I think that there is no real distinction, and that it makes sense that you register these, and that people know where you’re coming from.
So if you’re advising the government because you’re an ex-official who knows a bit about China, or you’re an ex-minister, and you’re actually having influence on the government, I can think of a few names. Then at least the government and everyone should be very clear that you’re not necessarily doing this without some interest because you’re getting paid a lot of money, or you’re earning a lot of money. Not directly, but the company that’s helping your advisory company or whatever.
Yeah, I’ve had conversations with members of the business community here in the UK, and as you know, Charlie, a lot of them are quite against putting China onto the enhanced tier. Places like Standard Charters and HSBC have publicly logged their opposition, saying that this would just create more paperwork for them because they fundamentally, some parts of their business do work with Chinese actors. But one business person actually said to me, this actually also means that a taxi driver that drives a Chinese businessman from the airport to his hotel might have to register if the law is poorly worded. Is that something that, you know, is actively considered at the moment?
I think we have to have common sense about that. I mean, I think that’s just, what word should I choose? Facetious, perhaps. An unrealistic, an unrealistic example. And that’s just scaremongering, I think, on the part of that particular person. Well, it’s just that because of the tier that China is on at the moment, it means that anyone who’s carrying out political activities has to register. And what the enhanced tier, as I understand it, Charlie, means is that anyone who’s carrying out any activities, even if it’s not political, has to also declare. So that’s, I think, where this person was coming from in the sense of you could be carrying out a service for them that is totally irrelevant to their status.
As I say, I think common sense has to be, you know, we’re not talking about taxi drivers here. We’re talking about people who are lobbying on behalf of these companies. Basically, that’s what it’s aimed at. So those companies know what it’s aimed at. And I don’t think it’s that onerous, actually, to have to register that, any more than anyone who works for the Houses of Parliament has to register their interests. I was an advisor to the Foreign Affairs Committee on China. I had to register every single earning and, you know, gift or whatever that I got. It’s not that onerous.
Yeah. And when it comes to, for example, the Prince Andrew and Yan Ten Bo case, would having been on the enhanced tier have helped? Because if Yan Ten Bo was really an agent of the United Front, surely he would have had to declare that political activity anyway. What we’re saying is that he didn’t actually come clean about his links to China. Well, given his background, I hope that…and he’s a member of the CPPCC, I think. Yes.
Yeah. He’s a party member. First of all, one hopes that the whole business of China being on the enhanced tier would raise awareness and transparency and put much more effort into it. Secondly, it does open people to sanctions. I mean, the whole business of his appeal, for instance, against being excluded, which must have been highly expensive to the British state as well as to him and others. I mean, just, you know, if you read the judgment and you think, how many lawyers are involved here, et cetera, et cetera. Well, that surely can be avoided.
Sorry. China’s on the enhanced tier. This is what the law says. Even… Sorry, I didn’t quite follow. How does being on the enhanced tier mean that he doesn’t have a right to appeal? Well, because if he has not followed the law, then clearly he’s in breach of it and can be sanctioned. And if that means excluding him, then there’s no reason for him to appeal. Right. Okay. It’s much less grey. It’s black and white.
Yeah. Yeah. Okay. And Charlie, first aside then, what else can the UK or other democracies be thinking about doing? What has it done already? Well, I think the previous government has made some good moves. I mean, it passed the National Security Investment Act. It passed a new National Security Act. I mean, for instance, it was not illegal to be an agent of the Ministry of State Security until that act was passed last year. Extraordinary though it sounds.
It was illegal to pass over classified information under the Visual Secrets Act, but it was not illegal to be an agent. And there are things like the Research Collaboration Advisory Team, which goes around universities talking about possible threats and how you might deal with them. So I think that’s good. I think we need to do much more to protect our science and technology with help both to startups, that’s financial as well, the advisory help, but also help to our universities, building on the RCAT, the Research Collaboration Agreement team work, and on the Investment Act, Security Investment Act.
But beyond that, I’m much taken by the Australian who set up a counter-interference coordination office to show just how seriously they took the problem with a budget to make sure there was a coherent strategy for dealing with it. Was that targeted at China? Well, of course, the word China doesn’t appear in that, but we know that it is.
I think that the Advisory Committee on Business Appointments needs to be strengthened so that people don’t go straight from being a minister or a high-level civil servant into a job where they basically espouse the interests of the Chinese Communist Party. Because that could influence the last few years of their work when they’re actually still in office thinking, well, I better not be too harsh against this because then I won’t get that nice, juicy job at the end.
So I think that needs looking at. And I think we need to talk to our, I’m sure we do, talk more to our allies about their experience of the United Front. Taiwan in particular, because that’s the front line of the United Front work. But also Australia, Canada, America, for instance. And finally, my biggest of ever hobby horses is we need a China strategy. I mean, this is just part of it.
And I do hope, with some trepidation, that the China audit, which is there to sketch out UK interests, but you can’t just sketch them out. Once you sketch them out, surely the question arises, what do you do about them? Yeah. When we last spoke, Charlie, you said that we were expecting the China audit possibly in spring, but you also made the point that springs are elastic. Do you still think that we might expect it in spring?
I’m expecting it to come out by April, by Easter, say. Okay. In what form and in what depth and how that, whether there’ll be the next step, which is the strategy, that’s still unclear. Yeah, yeah, of course. And then one thing that I’ve been writing about quite a lot is just why are we taking these high-level engagement trips without having that China audit done yet? And we’ve just heard that Wang Yi is coming to the UK later this year as well.
And again, that’s another trip that’s been decided without actually a decision on the China audit or any information. Well, I think you’re absolutely right, Cindy. And the question, similar question I’ve been asking is that if you’re the Labour Party, I think you knew several years before the 5th of July that you were coming to power. And you also knew that China’s rise didn’t date from the 5th of July 2024. And therefore, one might have hoped that your foreign policy experts in the Labour Party had actually sat down and worked out in advance at least the main outlines of how they would deal with China.
But so far, we’ve not heard any of that. It’s almost as if they were kicking the can down the road. Charlie Parton, thank you so much for joining Chinese Whispers. Pleasure, as ever. Thank you for listening to this episode of Chinese Whispers. I hope you enjoyed it.
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