Harvard Center Hypes Chinese Communist Party Popularity While Receiving MILLIONS From Chinese Govt and CCP-Linked Companies
Harvard’s Ash Center, which recently published a report claiming the Chinese Communist Party enjoys record-high support, has deep ties to the Chinese government including million-dollar donors from Chinese state-owned enterprises, leaders with financial ties to China, and collaboration with Chinese universities to train Chinese Communist Party officials. The July 2020 report “Understanding CCP Resilience: Surveying Chinese Public Opinion Through Time” contends that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is “as strong as ever” and “under no imminent threat of popular upheaval.” “Chinese citizen satisfaction with government has increased virtually across the board,” the Harvard Kennedy School Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation paper continues. But the 18-page report omits references to events countering this narrative: ongoing Hong Kong protests, oppression of Uyghurs in Xinjiang, or even the party’s mishandling of coronavirus. Harvard’s report was circulated widely by Chinese embassies, the CCP’s Foreign Ministry, and even state-run media outlets such as China Global Television Network (CGTN), which exploited the study to bolster its narrative the CCP enjoys widespread support.
FOLLOW THE MONEY. Among the Ash Center’s donors are China Southern Power Grid Corp, which is wholly owned and operated by the Chinese Government, whose management is “directly appointed by China’s central government.” Another donor is the CCP itself, via Taiwan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Further donations come from New World China Enterprises Project, a Chinese company whose board is composed of virtually all CCP members. Its Chairman and Executive Director Cheng Kar-Shun, for example, served as a Standing Committee Member of the CCP’s Political Consultative Conference. These financial ties grant the CCP at best influence and at worst coercion over the content of reports issued by the Ash Center. And the Ivy League university is already on the Department of Justice’s radar for failing to disclose millions in foreign gifts from China. The study’s foreword contends “long-term, publicly-available, and nationally-representative surveys in mainland China are so rare” due to CCP constraints but provides little detail as to how it circumvented such restrictions or what capacity, if any, the Chinese government was involved. Instead, buried in a single footnote: “The survey referenced in this brief was designed by the Harvard Ash Center for Democratic Innovation and implemented by a reputable domestic Chinese polling firm.” The “reputable firm” is never named, nor is any evidence provided for this claim.
CCP COLLABORATORS. The Ash Center’s Director is Anthony Saich, who in 2012 claimed China “is not really a threat to the U.S,” was a lead researcher of the study. Per his Harvard biography, Saich appears to have business interests in China as an “adviser” to a “wide range of government, private, and nonprofit organizations on work in China”: Saich first visited China as a student in 1976 and continues to visit each year. Currently, he is a guest professor at the School of Public Policy and Management at Tsinghua University, China. He also advises a wide range of government, private, and nonprofit organizations on work in China and elsewhere in Asia. One such example is Saich’s position as an independent director and trustee of AMC Entertainment, an American movie theatre chain that was notoriously subsumed by China’s Dalian Wanda Group Corp.
https://thenationalpulse.com/politics/harvard-chinese-funding/
Understanding CCP Resilience: Surveying Chinese Public Opinion Through Time
https://ash.harvard.edu/files/ash/files/final_policy_brief_7.6.2020.pdf
https://ash.harvard.edu/donors