Bipartisan Lawmakers Sound Alarm on China’s ‘Magic Weapon’

The top Republican and Democrat of a congressional committee on China are urging Americans to be alert to the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) influence operations known as “united front work”—a system that the United States has “no direct analogue” and its threats are “little understood.” On Nov. 27, Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-Wis.) and Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-Ill.), chair and ranking member of the House Select Committee on the CCP, issued a memo titled “United Front 101,” explaining how every CCP leader from Mao Zedong to Xi Jinping has valued the system to achieve the party’s goals. “Through its united front work strategy, which Xi Jinping has called a ‘magic weapon,’ the Chinese Communist Party uses every tool at its disposal, whether legal or illicit, to influence the American people and interfere in democratic societies,” Mr. Gallagher said in a statement....