A foundation headed by a former Chinese police detective with extensive ties to Chinese Communist Party (CCP) organizations has purchased a historic office building roughly 650 feet from the White House, prompting calls for U.S. authorities to examine the transaction for potential national security risks.
The Philip Qiu and Family Foundation paid $8.4 million for the Securities Building at 729 15th Street NW in Washington on July 21, according to property filings reviewed by the Daily Caller. The century-old building sits northeast of the White House grounds in the heart of Washington’s federal district.
The foundation’s namesake, Philip Qiu, also known by his Chinese name Qiu Feili (邱飞力), has a background that includes service in China’s public security system and senior positions in organizations associated with the CCP’s United Front apparatus, according to Chinese government and university records cited and translated by the Daily Caller.
Qiu did not respond to multiple requests for comment from the outlet.
From Shanghai police detective to US philanthropist
According to the Daily Caller investigation, Qiu began his career as a detective with the Criminal Investigation Team of the Shanghai Public Security Bureau. The bureau is subordinate to China’s Ministry of Public Security, the powerful national agency responsible for policing and domestic security.
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Qiu later attended a master’s program at Shanghai Jiao Tong University. A 2011 university account reviewed by the Daily Caller said Qiu had undergone “special forces training” before participating in a military-style team-building exercise. During the exercise, he commanded one side in a simulated battle and reportedly recorded the best individual marksmanship result.
The account has led to descriptions of Qiu as a trained sniper. The available records, however, do not establish that he served professionally as a military sniper or as a member of a Chinese special forces unit. Rather, the university account states that he had previously received special forces training and performed particularly well in the simulated exercise.
More significant from a U.S. national security perspective are Qiu’s connections to organizations within the CCP’s United Front system.
The Daily Caller reported that Qiu has served on the executive committee of the Shanghai branch of the All-China Federation of Returned Overseas Chinese and joined the Shanghai Overseas Chinese Foundation as a director in 2017. He became chairman of the foundation in 2021. The outlet described the foundation, citing Chinese government material, as the only charity operating within Shanghai’s United Front Work Department system.
At a foundation meeting in 2021, Qiu publicly tied its activities to CCP policy and Xi Jinping’s directives concerning overseas Chinese communities.
“The CCP is like a kind, but firm parent,” Qiu said, according to the Daily Caller’s translation of the Chinese-language announcement. He said the Party had led the Chinese people toward what Beijing calls the “great national rejuvenation.”
In another statement, Qiu said the foundation would continue implementing Xi’s directive to carry out the Party’s overseas Chinese policy, unite overseas Chinese and serve the country’s broader interests.
The United Front Work Department is a CCP organization tasked with building relationships with individuals and groups outside the Party and advancing Beijing’s political objectives. U.S. government agencies and congressional bodies have increasingly scrutinized United Front operations abroad because influence activities can overlap with intelligence collection and efforts to shape foreign political and Chinese diaspora communities.
Continued contacts with China’s security apparatus
Qiu’s connections to China’s security establishment have apparently continued long after his work as a Shanghai police detective.
According to Chinese government records reviewed by the Daily Caller, Qiu has served as honorary chairman of the Hong Kong Immigration Department Staff Association and helped organize events in 2023 and 2024 that introduced Hong Kong students to members of Shanghai’s SWAT police. Photographs accompanying the announcements reportedly showed the students interacting with Shanghai security personnel.
Qiu’s background places him squarely within institutions that U.S. officials have long associated with the Chinese Communist Party’s security, influence and intelligence apparatus. He previously worked for the Shanghai Public Security Bureau and later held senior roles in organizations tied to the CCP’s United Front system, which Beijing uses to cultivate overseas networks and advance Party objectives abroad.
While the available public record does not identify Qiu as a current officer of China’s Ministry of State Security, his overlapping ties to public security, United Front organizations and Chinese state-linked institutions have fueled questions about whether his activities extend beyond conventional philanthropy or business. The Daily Caller described him as a “CCP intelligence official,” citing that broader pattern of connections.
A second property near the White House
The Securities Building is not Qiu’s only connection to property near the White House.
The Philip Qiu and Family Foundation is headquartered at another historic property approximately half a mile north of the White House, according to corporate filings cited by the Daily Caller. That building is shared with six other entities controlled by Qiu, including the Chinese American Museum in Washington, which Qiu co-founded in 2017.
The museum describes itself as an institution devoted to preserving and presenting the Chinese American experience and has stated that it receives no funding from, and is not controlled or influenced by, any foreign government.
However, the Daily Caller reported that Chinese government entities have co-sponsored at least eight programs associated with the museum. Several involved organizations linked to the CCP’s United Front system. Since 2023, the museum has also co-sponsored Buddhist events involving Shanghai’s Longhua Temple, including an event at the Library of Congress, according to the investigation.
Purchase raises surveillance concerns
Qiu’s latest acquisition has drawn particular attention because of the Securities Building’s proximity to the White House.
Bryan Dean Wright, a former CIA operations officer, told the Daily Caller that a property so close to the executive complex could theoretically be used as a listening post or to deploy equipment capable of collecting cellphone calls, text messages and other electronic data.
“This property allows access for big splashy intel ops as well as for more classic ops — like a listening post or Stingray-like systems to collect phone calls, text messages, and digital exhaust,” Wright told the outlet.
Michael Lucci, founder and CEO of the national security advocacy organization State Armor, called the potential security risk “screamingly obvious” and urged federal authorities to investigate the transaction.
There is currently no publicly disclosed evidence that surveillance equipment has been installed in the building or that Qiu has used the property for espionage. No U.S. government agency had publicly announced an investigation into the purchase when the Daily Caller published its report on Aug. 13.
The White House and federal law enforcement agencies had also not publicly responded to the transaction, according to the report.
US expands scrutiny of foreign property purchases
The purchase comes amid broader concern in Washington over foreign ownership of property close to military bases and other sensitive facilities.
The Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, or CFIUS, has had explicit authority since 2020 to review certain purchases, leases and concessions involving foreign persons and real estate near designated military installations, airports and maritime ports, according to the U.S. Treasury Department.
In November 2024, Treasury expanded CFIUS’s real-estate jurisdiction around more than 60 military installations in 30 states. The rule added nearly 60 installations to the list of sites subject to real-estate review and expanded the geographic coverage around nearly 10 others.
The Qiu purchase is the latest in a series of cases in which property acquisitions by Chinese nationals or Chinese-controlled companies near sensitive American facilities have generated security concerns.
Other Chinese property purchases near sensitive US sites
One of the most prominent cases involved China’s Fufeng Group, which purchased approximately 370 acres in Grand Forks, North Dakota, for a proposed corn-milling plant about 12 miles from Grand Forks Air Force Base. The installation hosts sensitive U.S. intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance capabilities. CFIUS concluded that it lacked jurisdiction over the transaction, but in January 2023 the Air Force warned that the proposed project presented a “significant threat to national security” with both near- and long-term risks. Grand Forks officials subsequently blocked the project. The episode was later cited by members of Congress as evidence of gaps in federal review of foreign land acquisitions.
Another case produced direct presidential intervention. MineOne, a cryptocurrency mining operation ultimately majority-owned by Chinese nationals, acquired property in 2022 less than a mile from F.E. Warren Air Force Base in Cheyenne, Wyoming. The base is a strategic nuclear missile installation and home to Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missiles. CFIUS found national security risks stemming both from the property’s location and the specialized foreign-sourced equipment operating there. In May 2024, President Joe Biden ordered MineOne to sell the property and remove equipment from the site. The Defense Department said the transaction had not originally been submitted to CFIUS and was discovered after a public tip.
In Texas, Chinese billionaire Sun Guangxin and companies he controlled acquired roughly 130,000 to 140,000 acres in Val Verde County beginning in 2016. Part of the property was intended for a large wind-energy development near Laughlin Air Force Base, a major military pilot-training installation. U.S. lawmakers raised concerns over Sun’s past service in the People’s Liberation Army and reported CCP connections, although the project initially cleared federal review. Texas subsequently enacted legislation restricting companies tied to China and several other countries from gaining access to critical infrastructure, effectively derailing Sun’s plans to connect the project to the Texas electrical grid. A later Texas state security report said the proposed turbines raised concerns both as obstructions to military flight training and as possible platforms for intelligence-collection sensors.
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