Beijing's Hidden Army: How 2,294 United Front Cells Advance China's Interests in Four Leading Democracies

A Washington-based study identifies Canada as an extreme outlier for Beijing-linked “united front” organizations—nearly five times the per-capita density of the United States.

WASHINGTON/OTTAWA – A groundbreaking study has mapped 2,294 organizations with proven links to the Chinese Communist Party’s “united front” influence apparatus across the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, and Germany—with Canada exhibiting nearly five times the per-capita penetration rate of the U.S. and the highest density of CCP-linked organizations among all four democracies.

The Jamestown Foundation research, which analyzed open-source materials including Chinese government records, exposes a sophisticated system sprawled across leading Western democracies, designed to steal sensitive technology, launder money and smuggle migrants across borders, monitor and control diasporas, and advance Beijing’s ultimate strategic objective of displacing the United States as the dominant global power.

Among the report’s chief findings, case studies document American United Front leaders implicated in economic espionage—including theft of agricultural trade secrets and illegal export of military-grade technology to China—while others penetrated state governments in New York and Utah, where CCP-linked operatives infiltrated gubernatorial offices, shaped policy against Taiwan and Uyghur communities, and opened clandestine influence channels for regional Chinese governments.

But the data reveals an equally alarming pattern: with 575 documented organizations planted within a population of only 40 million people, Canada is disproportionately saturated with CCP-linked social cells, hosting 14.38 united front groups per million residents—nearly five times the U.S. rate of 2.89 per million, more than double the United Kingdom’s density, and over three times Germany’s penetration rate.

The Bureau’s analysis of Jamestown’s findings suggests Canada has become a strategic platform for Beijing’s efforts to penetrate U.S. technology sectors, supply chains, and influence networks—exploiting Canada’s deep, yet comparatively less secure, integration into North America’s defense and economic architecture.

The report’s sweeping conclusion speaks to the range of activities, some legal, some illegal, nested within vast United Front social networks.

“Operating through an extensive web of affiliated organizations, the united front system engages actors at every level from the national to the local,” the report says.

“These connections facilitate technology transfer, government influence, transnational repression, emergency mobilization, and criminal activities such as human trafficking and money laundering.”

Some of the report’s most sensitive research connects to the high-profile Linda Sun case—which ended in a hung jury in December 2025 and faces retrial in January 2027.

In an interview, report author Cheryl Yu explained how the Sun case represents merely the visible portion of a much larger problem, with dozens of similar cases in New York alone.

Sun, a former senior aide to New York Governors Kathy Hochul and Andrew Cuomo, is charged with leveraging her position as community liaison to Asian diasporas for the two governors while secretly acting as Beijing’s access agent in Albany—including allegedly forging Hochul’s signature to smuggle Chinese agents into the US, among numerous other alleged Chinese Communist Party schemes.

All the while, during the pandemic, Sun and her husband were allegedly laundering millions in bribes and fraudulent PPE deals from China through a cluster of United Front leaders and groups in New York that acted as hidden proxies for Beijing’s intelligence services.

“Linda Sun is the one case that was reported,” Yu said, noting that the number of potential agents with documented United Front ties in New York political circles is staggering.

“In New York, we put together a list of more than 20 individuals that looked concerning,” Yu said, based on their interactions with the CCP and United Front-affiliated agencies.

Evidence also pointed to Winnie Greco, Eric Adams’ former Asia community director removed after incidents surfaced. The Bureau has reported that Sun case evidence also shows an aide for Congresswoman Grace Meng simultaneously led a New York United Front group headed by an unindicted co-conspirator in the alleged bribery and money laundering scheme.

The challenge for American law enforcement—and by extension for Canada, the United Kingdom, and Germany—Yu explains, is that relationship-building with United Front organs is not itself illegal: “It’s hard to say directly that [dozens of potential agents in New York] need to be charged, until they do something that is beneficial for the party or directly illegal that crosses the line a democratic society has set.”

Yu traced tentacles from Beijing’s United Front organs into political offices that extend well beyond New York. Working with guidance from Jamestown’s director, former CIA analyst and China influence expert Peter Mattis, Yu’s research identified politically linked groups in Canadian cities including Vancouver and Toronto with similar characteristics.

“From the Canada example, we also see individuals with similar backgrounds—people who head United Front-linked organizations in Canada, and who were overseas delegates, and who had very close relationships with prime ministers or city-level officials, or who became candidates at the city or provincial level,” she said.

The methodology for identification is straightforward: “An individual or organization has a close relationship with a United Front-linked agency, and at the same time has close relationships with Canadian officials, or U.S. officials—at local government and federal levels.”

To protect Western democratic institutions, Yu emphasizes the necessity of examining these relationships “from the party’s perspective—seeing who the party considers important—and continuing to monitor how these people are being used by the party.”

Asked to explain the extraordinary disparity in Beijing’s penetration of Canada, Yu’s analysis pointed to deliberate strategic targeting—and brazen connectivity to senior elected Canadian officials—rather than simply the organic formation of groups within the country’s large diaspora population.

“I think Canada is a very important target for the party because it’s open, it’s influential, and it’s intertwined with the United States economically and politically,” Yu said. “Canada is a very open country, very friendly to people around the world. And the interesting thing I saw in cases related to Canada is that individuals linked with United Front system agencies openly share their access to, for example, Canadian leadership.”

Commenting on the Jamestown findings, former national security analyst and Under Assault author Dennis Molinaro said he believes countering united front activity in Canada is more difficult because of the nation’s history and the government’s recent overtures to Beijing. “The CCP weaponizes culture. It weaponizes anything that can benefit the Party, and the problem that Canada has is that it has been a permissive environment for so long,” Molinaro said. “If the current government doesn’t view China as a threat, then united front influence will not only grow but flourish, to the detriment of Canadian and U.S. security.”

But while Canada exhibits the highest density of penetration, the United States has faced its own systematic targeting—particularly in technology theft and infiltration of state and municipal governments, as documented cases in Utah, California, and Nevada reveal.

UFWD Leaders Task Government Infiltration

The direct line from CCP leadership directives to on-the-ground influence operations in American state governments is documented with unusual clarity in the Jamestown research. In 2012, then-Overseas Chinese Affairs Office (OCAO) director Li Haifeng articulated the strategic imperative in stark terms: overseas united front work must “serve the state’s diplomatic strategy.”

The OCAO, a Chinese state office that maintains diplomatic staff in Beijing’s missions worldwide, is simultaneously a commanding United Front organ for controlling the Chinese Communist Party’s global diaspora cells, according to Jamestown’s research in addition to court findings in Canada.

Yu found that Li Haifeng instructed operatives to guide “overseas Chinese organizations and leaders of overseas Chinese communities to strengthen connections with government officials and relevant leaders of the host country, and actively participate in local economic and social development, as well as in public affairs.”

Critically, Li specified that this work should involve guiding overseas Chinese to “support the Chinese government’s positions and viewpoints on major issues such as Chinese territory, sovereignty, security, and human rights, and to express them to local governments and the public through appropriate means.”

The Utah case study demonstrates how these directives translate into decades-long institutional penetration.

In 2023, the Associated Press reported that the PRC had successfully influenced Utah lawmakers and promoted CCP-friendly policies and narratives through establishing friendly relations with local governments in China, organizing visits to the PRC, and passing resolutions on Chinese-language education and bills supporting pro-Beijing relations. The operation succeeded largely due to two key individuals deeply embedded in the united front system.

Le Taowen, a professor at Weber State University who came to the United States in the 1980s as a state-sponsored graduate student, exemplifies the patient cultivation model. In 2002, Le became president of the Chinese Association for Science and Technology in Utah (CAST-UT), a united front organization that aims to “build relationships and exchange programs between China and the United States in the areas of culture, science, technology, business, trade, and education.” Through CAST-UT, he initiated the Utah Chinese New Year Celebration, attended over the years by the governor, the president of the state senate, and the speaker of the house.

Between 2002 and 2017, Le held multiple positions within PRC political bodies while maintaining his academic role: deputy director of Liaoning Province’s Department of IT Industry, Liaoning’s representative in the United States, and overseas Chinese delegate to the CPPCC in 2008. The access translated into policy influence. Le helped delay the ban of Confucius Institutes in Utah, lobbied to block a resolution condemning Beijing’s crackdown on Uyghurs, engineered exchanges between the Utah State Legislature and Liaoning Provincial People’s Congress in 2006, and supported passage of a 2008 senate bill funding dual-language immersion programs.

Shawn Hu worked from inside government rather than adjacent to it. Hu held positions including Utah’s trade representative in Beijing, assistant to the governor, and senior advisor on China Affairs. In 2010, he helped establish a sister province relationship with Qinghai following a preparatory trip organized by the Qinghai Foreign Affairs Office. In 2019, as chairman of the Utah-Qinghai Industrial Technology Strategic Alliance, Hu met with Shanxi’s foreign affairs office and vice president of its Provincial People’s Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries, a key Chinese Communist united front organ, to discuss cooperation with Utah’s government.

California: Community Networks as Political Instruments

The Chinese American Federation (CAF), established in 2005 in Diamond Bar, California, illustrates how identity-based organizations continue to execute on Overseas Chinese Affairs Office directives broadcast from Beijing by Li Haifeng. Now encompassing over 120 member organizations, CAF has been systematically cultivated by the united front system since PRC consular officials attended its founding ceremony.

Former CAF president Simon Shao—a committee member for another central united front organ that Yu’s connective research focuses on, called the All-China Federation of Returned Overseas Chinese (ACFROC)—stated he would “actively participate in politics, discuss policies, and intervene in politics”—language mirroring Li’s directive almost exactly.

While CAF hosts benign community events—ping-pong competitions, Lunar New Year celebrations—it simultaneously coordinates overtly political activities: “Love China, Love Hong Kong, No Secession, No Riot Violence” events in 2019, and an open letter against Nancy Pelosi’s Taiwan visit in 2022. Of 210 events between May 2013 and October 2025, seven directly promoted Party political views.

Shao leveraged community credibility to shape local institutions, arranging for the Los Angeles Public Library to host Nishan House—a Shandong state publishing brand—with assistance from City Librarian John F. Szabo, a CAF senior honorary advisor, stationing nearly one thousand Chinese books.

Professional Organizations: From “Living Treasures” to Technology Theft

For at least 50 years, the Party has cultivated Chinese immigrants as a valuable source of talent that can aid the PRC’s technological and economic development.

It seeks to enlist these experts, either by recruiting them to work in the PRC or by using them to acquire technology from overseas. In the late 1970s, Deng Xiaoping described ethnic Chinese experts as “living treasures.” Jiang Zemin expressed similar sentiments, saying that they constitute “an important treasure trove of talent for the Chinese nation.” He encouraged overseas scientific and technological talents to return to the PRC to work “or serve the motherland in an appropriate way.”

In 1997, Jiang spoke to the Chinese Association for Science and Technology USA (CAST-USA), one of 49 united front professional organizations identified in the United States. He emphasized the significance of science and technology for the PRC’s modernization and hoped that overseas professionals would “contribute to the goal of surpassing the United States in various fields.”

Remarkably, Yu’s research for Jamestown revealed that CAST-USA operates a dual infrastructure: four offices within China itself—in Shanghai, Beijing, Guangzhou, and Hangzhou—explicitly used to “promote technological exchanges and cooperation with domestic entities” and “facilitate the implementation of technological achievements,” while simultaneously maintaining 16 chapters across the United States serving as collection points for American technology and expertise.

Another example of utilizing Chinese professionals abroad for talent transfer operates through the Overseas Chinese Affairs Office.

In 2009, OCAO hosted a forum on biomedicine with the Hubei government where multiple U.S.-based professional associations—including the Chinese-American Biomedical Association, the Chinese Biopharmaceutical Association USA, and the Sino-American Biotechnology and Pharmaceutical Professional Association—signed a memorandum of understanding with the Hubei Provincial Food and Drug Administration to establish an overseas Chinese biomedical professional database and conduct “in-depth cooperation in talent development.”

While the Jamestown report does not make the connection explicitly, these biomedical professional networks—and the state-level collection directives from leaders of the Chinese Communist Party—resonate disturbingly with recent discoveries of alleged CCP-linked clandestine biological laboratories on U.S. soil.

In December 2023, the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party released findings on an illegal biolab in Reedley, California, containing nearly 1,000 genetically engineered mice carrying infectious diseases, pathogens including HIV, malaria, and tuberculosis, and thousands of inadequately labeled biological material vials. Committee Chairman Mike Gallagher stated the operation was “part of a web of companies and people with deep ties to the PRC that may be involved in similar activities.”

The principal behind the Reedley facility, Jesse Zhu (also known as Jia Bei Zhu), previously established operations in Vancouver before relocating to California—a pattern that exemplifies how Canada’s high concentration of united front-linked networks may serve as an incubation platform for activities that later migrate into U.S. territory.

As reported by The Bureau, Zhu’s network of shell companies operated across multiple jurisdictions and was linked in February to a separate investigation involving a Las Vegas laboratory. Zhu’s actions in Canada were part of schemes that allegedly defrauded investors and government programs of more than $300 million. The House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party said Zhu’s companies had “extensive ties” to entities in China and raised concerns about potential dual-use applications—ostensibly commercial biomedical operations that could also support intelligence collection, technology transfer, or biological research objectives aligned with PRC strategic interests.

In materials gathered from the California lab—which investigators said contained trace amounts of illegal synthetic narcotics alongside dangerous pathogens—documents showed Zhu framing a dairy-related business plan around then–PRC Premier Wen Jiabao’s stated goal of ensuring Chinese children receive sufficient milk, a directive Zhu cited when he first set up operations in Vancouver.

The Jamestown report documents convicted technology thieves whose cases illustrate the direct link between professional network affiliations and economic espionage operations.

Yan Wengui, a research geneticist at the U.S. Department of Agriculture, was charged in 2013 with conspiracy to steal rice seeds from a Kansas biotech firm during a PRC delegation visit he helped organize. Yan’s united front connection began in 2008 when he was appointed to OCAO’s Overseas Expert Consultant Committee—a body implementing the Party’s “rejuvenation through science and education” strategy. Between appointments, he participated extensively in OCAO programs, attending the Sixth World Overseas Chinese Forum alongside Politburo member Wang Yang and other senior Party officials. He pleaded guilty in 2016 and received one year in prison.

Huang Leping and her husband illegally exported military-grade analog-to-digital converters to the PLA’s 24th Research Institute of the China Electronics Technology Corporation. Despite the severity—sending U.S. military technology directly to support PRC military modernization—Huang received a lenient settlement: $300,000 penalty with $250,000 suspended.

Her united front ties stretched to 1997 when she co-founded the U.S. Wenzhou Association, becoming president in 2009. She participated in the 2003 World Wenzhounese Conference initiated by current Premier Li Qiang, where Xi Jinping called on attendees to “contribute to our motherland.” Around the time her illegal exports began in 2008, Huang visited Chongqing where the target military institute is located, meeting OCAO’s deputy director and ACFROC’s chairman.