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are two types of bureaucracies: (1) general-purpose bureaucracies, and (2) specialized bureaucracies. The following institutional profiles include many of the principal bodies
involved in China’s overseas influence activities.
Ministry of Foreign Affairs
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs is a typical general-purpose bureaucracy that serves as China’s main interlocutor with foreign governments. But since most of its time is consumed by routine diplomatic activities, the Foreign Ministry itself does not play a significant role in influence operations overseas. The one area where it does is via its Department of Public Diplomacy (1h3e#82334943e 51), which primarily oversees the MFA Spokesman’s Office in Beijing, international media outreach, and China’s embassy spokesmen abroad; international visitor programs; and “exchange” organizations, such as the Chinese People’s Institute of Foreign Affairs (which bring a range of former officials and international affairs experts to China). Also, the MFA is important insofar as Chinese embassies abroad have representatives of the Ministry of Culture, the Xinhua News Agency, the CCP International Liaison Department, the Ministry of Education, and other bureaucratic bodies, each of which are involved in foreign
influence activities.
United Front Work Department
The CCP United Front Work Department is a specialized CCP organization, one of four Central Committee departments. Its principal mission is to build support for the CCP and its policies among domestic ethnic groups, religious groups, the eight so-called democratic parties (R= tit), the Chinese diaspora worldwide, and political, economic, and social elites in Hong Kong, Macao, and Taiwan. These United Front activities have a long history dating to the CCP’s pre-1949 rise to power. The main tasks and objectives of the CCP’s United Front activities outside of Greater China are laid out in Article 31 of the CCP Guidelines on United Front Work (PHRF RAKE IF Kb) issued in 2015—they target almost exclusively the Chinese diaspora, who are supposed to be encouraged to “contribute to the modernization and reunification of the motherland, advance the cause of opposing (Taiwanese) independence and promoting reunification, inherit and propagate China’s outstanding culture, and promote the friendship between the Chinese people and the peoples of the other
countries in the world.”
Appendix 1
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