House Panel to Examine How China Uses American Groups to Shape U.S. Debate

A House Foreign Affairs subcommittee is set to hold a hearing in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday examining how foreign governments, including China, Cuba and Iran, may be using American nonprofits and activist networks to influence U.S. public opinion and policy.

The hearing, titled “Trojan Horses: Covert Foreign Malign Influence Operations in America,” will be held before the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on South and Central Asia. Committee Chairman Rep. Bill Huizenga, R-Mich., said the goal is to bring these operations into public view.

“My goal is to raise the curtain to expose these operations and stop them from undermining our national security, capitalism and the American Dream,” Huizenga told Fox News Digital.

Among the scheduled witnesses is Matthew Johnson, a China expert and senior fellow at the Jamestown Foundation, who told Fox News Digital ahead of the hearing that Beijing’s most effective strategy is not spreading propaganda directly, but shaping debate through American institutions and individuals so its messaging appears to originate domestically.

“The idea is that it’s not the Communist Party talking, it’s actually institutions and individuals in the United States who are talking,” Johnson said. “That’s actually the best outcome because then it looks organic… it looks like it’s somehow being produced from within our society as opposed to by external actors.”

Johnson said one of Beijing’s current priorities is slowing U.S. progress in artificial intelligence and data-center infrastructure, an area he described as central to strategic competition between the two countries. He said China pairs grassroots activism with efforts to influence thinking among academics and policy experts.

The Singham Network

Johnson’s testimony comes as Congress continues investigating a funding network tied to Shanghai-based tech figure Neville Roy Singham. Fox News Digital has previously reported that Singham directed at least $285 million beginning in 2017 into six pro-China, pro-communist nonprofit organizations, including the activist group CodePink. Singham and the organizations have denied taking direction from the Chinese government, and neither he nor the groups have been charged with wrongdoing.

CodePink, co-founded by Medea Benjamin and Jodie Evans — Singham’s wife — has organized protests inside Congress and campaigned against U.S. policy toward China, Cuba and Israel. Its “China Is Not Our Enemy” campaign argues the United States should pursue cooperation with Beijing rather than confrontation. Republicans on the House Ways and Means Committee have accused the group of promoting narratives aligned with Chinese Communist Party interests, an allegation CodePink denies.

Johnson said campaigns like that one serve Beijing’s strategic interests even when framed around peaceful intentions.

“The idea that we don’t want war with China, we want peace… these are all noble goals,” Johnson said. “But… its strategic function is that it masks the fact that Beijing actually does seek a world order that is more shaped by Beijing in which the United States plays a lesser role.”

Johnson said China does not need Americans to embrace the Chinese Communist Party to benefit from this dynamic — it only needs public debate to drift away from viewing China as a strategic competitor.

“The real issue is whether there is actually a balance and whether we have enough transparency to allow us to assess whether there’s a balance,” Johnson said. “From an American perspective, we want to be sure that it’s Americans who are leading the debate on this issue, not Beijing.”