This is wild.

(thread) https://www.thedailybeast.com/nypd-officer-baimadajie-angwang-spied-on-tibetan-new-yorkers-for-chinese-government-feds-say?ref=wrap

First, as pointed out to me by @boweconstrictr, one unfortunate side effect here might be that "people are going to be suspicious that ethnic Tibetans are CCP agents when in reality they are one of the most heavily persecuted groups by the Chinese government."

This is totally true. Beijing goes out of its waaaaaaaaay out of its way to penetrate the Tibetan diaspora community, render potential opposition ineffective by dividing the community against itself.

"Blessings from Beijing“, a really good book by @gregcbruno goes into some depth on this. Focuses mostly on the community in India, but the lessons are applicable more broadly.

Second, we've got the United Front Work Department rearing its ugly head in this case.

To quote the article, one of the officials at the PRC NY consulate who appeared to be running Angwang was "reportedly assigned to the 'China Association for Preservation and Development of Tibetan Culture,' a division of the country’s United Front Work Department."

The phrasing here gets to the heart of why the UFWD is so hard to talk about. The CAPDTC isn't really strictly a 'division' of the UFWD, per se. You will search its Chinese bylaws in vain for a mention of the UFWD.

Likewise, its English-language description does not mention the UFWD. Just says the org is "registered" with the Ministry of Civil Affairs (a common arrangement for front orgs like this). That's nice and normal sounding, wouldn't ring alarm bells for foreigners.

But the org is undoubtedly a creation of the UFWD. Further searches show that the guest of honor at its establishment was Liu Yandong, then-head of the UFWD. (At a time when some analyses would tell you the United Front was supposedly quiescent; it wasn't.)

She was also one of its first batch of honorary chairpersons.

Its second batch of honorary chairpersons, named in 2010, included her successor as head of the UFWD, Du Qinglin.

In 2019, at the first plenary of its third standing committee, the guest of honor was--you guessed it--a UFWD poobah. In this case Dan Ke, who in addition to being the head of the Tibet Autonomous Regions's UFWD is also a member of its Party standing committee

Despite all this, it wouldn't be right to call the CAPDTC a "division" of the UFWD. "A front organization supervised by" is probably more accurate.

The UFWD's actual divisions are its bureaux, each of which is targeted at one or more specific groups the Party believes could produce challenges to its power. (Tibetans are one of said groups, as are Uyghurs.)

Much more on that in this great article by @alexjoske on the UFWD's present structure https://jamestown.org/program/reorganizing-the-united-front-work-department-new-structures-for-a-new-era-of-diaspora-and-religious-affairs-work/

This deliberate blurriness in the lines of reporting/responsibility the UFWD creates with orgs it supervises is part of what makes addressing UFWD influence overseas so hard and potentially divisive.

The covert and quasi-covert ways these relationships are used and managed (in this case, actual espionage inside the NYPD) means you need real expertise to assess whether there's something fishy going on.

It makes it really easy for people who don't know what they're talking about to cast suspicion on people and organizations that don't deserve it (circling back around to @boweconstrictr's point).

It's a corrosive dynamic created in part by deliberate policy choices on the part of the CCP. But, as always, they don't really care. East, west, south, north, and center, the party leads all. (end thread)