Mainstream Media Stars Took China-Linked Trips as Beijing Chased Friendly Coverage [WATCH]

Foreign agent filings are raising serious questions about how a Chinese Communist Party linked influence operation courted some of the most recognizable names in American journalism.

The records describe efforts tied to the China United States Exchange Foundation, known as CUSEF, to arrange access for reporters whose work could help shape perceptions of Beijing.

The filings do not simply describe harmless cultural exchange or some innocent sightseeing tour with noodles and polite handshakes.

They show operatives discussing how to generate “favorable coverage” and “effectively disseminate positive messages to the media, key influencers and opinion leaders, and the general public” regarding China.

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CUSEF was founded by Tung Chee-hwa, a former vice chairman of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference.

That body sits inside the broader United Front ecosystem, which congressional investigators have described as a central tool for advancing Chinese Communist Party influence abroad.

The names tied to these trips and media programs read like a roll call from America’s elite press club.

The list includes current and former figures connected to The New York Times, CNN, MSNBC, The Washington Post, NPR, the Associated Press, Vox, The Atlantic, the Los Angeles Times, the Chicago Tribune and more.

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Among those identified were Ezra Klein, Ronald Brownstein, Marjorie Miller, Steve Clemons, David Rohde, Daniel Gross, Kathleen Deveny, Tom Omestad, Steve Chapman, Bruce Stokes, Craig Gilbert, Shikha Dalmia, Jonathan Broder, Cristi Kempf, Jon Healey and Julian Pecquet. That is not exactly a fringe blogger meetup in a hotel basement.

The concern is not merely that journalists visited China.

The concern is that a CCP linked outfit funded or organized access while its representatives talked openly in foreign agent records about cultivating coverage that would make Beijing look better to American audiences.

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Some of the later commentary fits the pattern in ways that should make readers wonder how often the press corps confuses access with independence.

Shikha Dalmia published a piece titled “China Bashing is for Losers” during the same year she traveled to China.

Bruce Stokes warned that economic “decoupling” from China would “backfire.”

Catherine Rampell criticized President Trump’s China posture in columns such as “Team Trump should be careful what it wishes for on China.”

David Rohde offered one of the most striking examples after taking part in a CUSEF organized trip.

He praised the role of the Chinese state in building business and later framed complaints from American politicians as “ideological babble.”

Rohde also argued that Americans should accept the disappearance of large scale manufacturing as a permanent fact of life.

That message sounded awfully convenient for a regime that spent decades benefiting from American factories leaving towns across the heartland while Washington elites shrugged.

Ezra Klein later defended parts of China’s early pandemic response, writing on X, “I keep hearing that China bought us some real time and our government wasted it doing nothing and downplaying the threat.”

Matthew Yglesias joked that he wanted to “give Party flunkies notes” on improving “propaganda.”

Steve Chapman repeatedly mocked Trump’s trade confrontation with Beijing.

In one post, he wrote, “China may have a bad human rights record, but you don’t have to take off your shoes for airport security.”

The network also brushed up against Biden world.

Bruce Stokes is married to Wendy Sherman, who later became deputy secretary of state in the Biden administration, while Steve Clemons enjoyed a friendly rapport with Biden during the then vice president’s 2013 trip to China.

Clemons later wrote that “Biden gets China” and spoke approvingly of “a new global order” with China as its “anchor.”

For Americans who have watched the ruling class bend over backward for Beijing while lecturing everyone else about democracy, the irony is not subtle.

The scandal here is not that every word written by these journalists was dictated from Beijing.

The scandal is that a CCP linked influence machine could fund travel, curate access, arrange meetings and then watch trusted American voices deliver narratives that often lined up neatly with Chinese interests.

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American readers were not always shown the machinery behind the curtain.

They got polished columns, expert analysis and respectable bylines, while the deeper influence game remained buried in filings that most people never see.

That is exactly how soft power works when the target is a decadent media establishment desperate for prestige, access and global approval.

Beijing did not need to buy the newsroom outright when so many of its preferred themes could arrive wearing a press credential.

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