Why the CCP Seeks to Undermine America From Within

By Bing He, Commentary

Every country seeks to influence others. That is part of international politics. So why does the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) warrant particular scrutiny? An incident at the World Economic Forum in Davos in January 2026 offers a revealing example. A reporter from China Central Television (CCTV), the CCP’s state broadcaster, asked U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent about something called the “Kill Line.”

The term, translated directly from Chinese, had already gone viral on Chinese social media. It presented a bleak picture of American life and how a single medical bill, car repair, or lost job could push an ordinary middle-class family into bankruptcy or even homelessness. Images and videos of homeless Americans across major cities circulated widely online alongside the narrative.

RELATED: Taiwan, Japan Call for Unity to Counter Beijing’s Transnational Repression

Selling a narrative

In China’s tightly-controlled information landscape, narratives that spread on such a scale can carry broader political significance. At Davos, the CCTV reporter effectively brought one such domestic narrative onto the international stage.

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Bessent appeared unfamiliar with the term and initially responded by discussing inflation under the Biden administration. When the reporter continued pressing him, he eventually replied, “Sorry. I don’t understand the question. I’m not sure you do either.”

The exchange illustrates a broader theme in CCP messaging about the United States. America is frequently portrayed as evidence of democratic dysfunction: Politicians care more about elections than ordinary citizens, social problems go unresolved, and political competition produces division rather than effective governance.

By comparison, the CCP presents its own system as capable of providing stability, security, and long-term planning, as part of a broader argument that one-party rule is superior to liberal democracy. But propaganda represents only one part of the strategy.

If the CCP seeks to demonstrate the superiority of its political system, weakening confidence in America’s system can serve the same objective. That is where influence operations, infiltration, and efforts to erode public trust become particularly important.

Exploiting America’s divisions

U.S. elections provide one example. Rather than necessarily favoring one candidate over another, CCP-linked cyber operations, disinformation, and influence campaigns can exploit existing political polarization to deepen distrust and sow more discord in democratic institutions.

Every time America appears more divided, the CCP gains a propaganda victory at home, reinforcing a narrative that effectively tells the Chinese people: “Look. Democracy doesn’t work. Elections don’t work. Democracy brings chaos and division. Our system is better.”

The strategy extends far beyond elections. Chinese dissident communities in the United States expose human rights abuses and directly challenge the CCP’s political legitimacy. Silencing those voices has therefore become a significant priority for Beijing. Of particular concern is the use of institutions embedded within democratic societies themselves, including media campaigns, legal pressure, and influence operations, to marginalize critics overseas.

In short, the CCP is using our own freedom against our freedom. Dissidents may be the immediate targets, but the implications extend to the democratic institutions and civil liberties that allow such criticism to exist in the first place.

Influencing American institutions

Concerns over CCP influence have also reached American government. In New York, Linda Sun, a former aide to Gov. Kathy Hochul, was federally charged with acting on behalf of the Chinese government. In California, former Arcadia Mayor Eileen Wang pleaded guilty to acting as an illegal agent of the CCP.

These cases represent one component of a much broader challenge. CCP-linked influence operations in the United States have been associated with activities ranging from transnational repression and intellectual property theft to United Front organizations and influence efforts targeting universities, businesses, media organizations, political institutions, and public opinion.

Confucius Institutes have likewise faced years of scrutiny over their relationships with the Chinese government and their presence on American university campuses. And the issue is not confined to Washington or America’s largest cities. Concerns have emerged in Virginia as well.

Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology, for example, received approximately $3.6 million between 2014 and 2021 from entities with ties to China. The relationships later came under congressional scrutiny over allegations involving the sharing of curriculum materials and other information with Chinese partners.

Another example involved WCRW, a Leesburg, Virginia, radio station now known as WTSD. Beginning in 2011, the station broadcast programming from China Radio International (CRI), China’s state-owned international broadcaster. A 2015 investigation found that a CRI subsidiary owned 60 percent of an American company that leased nearly all of WCRW’s airtime, an arrangement that drew scrutiny from U.S. regulators over Beijing’s influence on American airwaves.

An ideological conflict

As noted at the outset, attempts by governments to influence other countries are nothing new. Understanding the CCP’s activities, however, requires looking beyond individual incidents and examining the political incentives behind them. The existence of a free, prosperous democratic society such as America presents an ideological challenge to the CCP’s argument that authoritarian government offers a superior model.

Other authoritarian governments, including North Korea, Cuba, Iran, and Russia, have also opposed the United States. But China possesses an unusual combination of economic power, technological capacity, global reach, and political ambition. That makes the CCP different. From the Party’s perspective, weakening confidence in American democracy can serve more than a conventional foreign-policy objective. It can also reinforce the CCP’s domestic argument for maintaining one-party rule.

The two goals are therefore intertwined: Portraying American democracy as dysfunctional strengthens the Party’s political narrative at home, while divisions and institutional distrust within the United States provide additional material with which to make that case.