Melanie Hart, who now serves in the Biden administration as China policy coordinator to the undersecretary of state for economic growth, energy and the environment, has taken part in programs and written reports that were sponsored by one of China’s top propaganda organizations, whose mission it is to “influence foreign governments to take actions or adopt positions supportive of Beijing.”
Additionally, e-mails show that Hart said she was “fine” with Chinese think tanks engaging in “international influencing” in the United States. She has also discreetly provided premiers of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) with questions prior to conferences.
In her new role within the Biden White House, Hart will “oversee a review of Trump administration policies,” according to Bloomberg. The outlet notes that she’ll focus on the Trump team’s “Clean Network” Initiative, which encouraged countries to block Huawei, the communist Chinese-aligned telecom company.
Yet Hart’s record suggests that she’ll be anything but tough on Beijing.
In 2013, for example, Hart went on a trip sponsored by the China-United States Exchange Foundation (CUSEF) to Beijing as part of a delegation for the Center for American Progress (CAP).
Hart traveled to China to attend the annual “U.S.-China High-Level Dialogue.”
The September event discussed the findings of a 110-page CAP report entitled Toward a New Model of Major Power Relationship, which called for closer financial ties and military collaboration between America and China. Attendees at the event from the Chinese side were academics from state-run universities and think tanks, such as the People’s Liberation Army Academy for Military Science.
“Officials and experts in both countries need a more effective dialogue with their citizens on the importance of the U.S.-China relationship and what new-model relations exercise is designed to prevent and achieve,” the CAP report read.
Hart, who at the time was a senior policy analyst, received acclaim for her contributions. “The National Security and International Policy team at the Center for American Progress authored this paper in preparation for the September 2013 CAP-CUSEF High Level Dialogue in Beijing, China. The team would like to acknowledge contributions by Senior Vice President Rudy deLeon, Senior Fellow Nina Hachigian, Senior Policy Analyst Melanie Hart, Policy Analyst Ken Sofer, and intern Luke Herman on this report.”
A brochure about the event from 2013 reveals that the delegate met with important Chinese Communist Party figures including state-run think tank leaders, state councilors, and party secretaries.
Hart was also listed as an attendee at a 2015 event in Beijing entitled “CAP-CUSEF High Level Dialogue.” She was slated to speak on the subject of “climate change and energy” alongside Democrat donor and failed presidential candidate Tom Steyer.
As the National Pulse notes about CUSEF’s aims and history:
CUSEF was founded by the Vice-Chairman of the “highest-ranking entity overseeing” China’s United Front, which the U.S.-China Security and Economic Review Commission identifies as seeking to “to co-opt and neutralize sources of potential opposition to the policies and authority of its ruling Chinese Communist Party” and “influence” entities such as “foreign governments and other actors to take actions or adopt positions supportive of Beijing.”
Aided by Western lobbying firms, CUSEF has set out to “effectively disseminate positive messages to the media, key influencers and opinion leaders, and the general public” regarding China, according to Foreign Agent Registration Act (FARA) filings with the Department of Justice.
In an e-mail exchange with CAP personnel ahead of a 2015 trip to the Chinese state-sponsored China Center for International Economic Exchanges (CCIEE) Fourth Global Think Tank Summit, Hart opined that she is “fine” with Chinese think tanks partnering with “western ones (like [CAP])” to do more “international influencing” before noting the government crackdown that would “force CAP to conduct all of its China activities under direct police supervision.”
“They want Chinese think tanks to partner with western ones (like us) more and do more international influencing. That’s fine,” Hart wrote.
At the summit, China’s premier of the State Council, Li Keqiang, was asked a question by Clinton ally John Podesta. An e-mail thread shows that Hart said she’d forward the question to “Premier Li’s team” so they “can get to work figuring out how to answer.”
Moreover, Hart’s professional bio reveals that she “worked on Qualcomm’s China business development team, to provide technology market and regulatory analysis to guide Qualcomm operations in Greater China” and also “worked as a China advisor for the Scowcroft Group, Albright Stonebridge Group (ASG), and the University of California Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation.”
ASG extensively consults for the Chinese government and retains its officials as advisers.
