Virginia is home to the Pentagon, CIA, FBI, and the world’s largest naval base. However, the state is increasingly seen as a frontline in the competition between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), according to one China expert.
Speaking at a recent Asian community event in Virginia with election candidates, China analyst He Bin warned that the CCP’s reach into the state has been extensive and should not be underestimated.
“The CCP believes the fundamental conflict between China and the United States is ideological: communism versus capitalism, dictatorship versus democracy,” he said.
“They see an ultimate showdown between these two systems, and every move they make now is to prepare for that moment—to harm the United States.”
He was a macroeconomics researcher in China and is now based in the United States. He closely watches the CCP’s moves in the United States, particularly its infiltration and influence campaigns. He was invited to the event to discuss the CCP’s influence on U.S. soil.
Influence Campaign
Virginia is often described as the nerve center of U.S. national security. Naval Station Norfolk in Virginia is the headquarters of the U.S. Fleet Forces Command, while nearby Newport News Shipbuilding is the U.S. Navy’s only builder of nuclear-powered aircraft carriers and submarines. Given this strategic profile, He believes that CCP-linked activity in the state deserves scrutiny.
He provided examples of the CCP’s infiltration in media, commerce, education, and research in Virginia.
One example in the media, he said, is the WCRW radio station located in Leesburg, Virginia. From 2011 to 2023, the station aired CCP-funded programming through a network of shell companies connected to Beijing’s state-run China Radio International. More than $4 million was received by the station’s parent company, Potomac Group, to promote pro-Beijing narratives while obscuring the Chinese regime’s control over the content, He said.
In 2021, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC)
ordered China Telecom Americas, based in Herndon, Virginia, to shut down its U.S. operations over national security risks. Despite the order, He said, the company has continued to operate in limited capacity from its Virginia office.
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He pointed out that only recently has Congress
introduced bills to ban China from owning U.S. farmland and that foreign acquisitions are a growing concern, citing Smithfield Foods. In 2013, the Virginia-based company, the largest U.S. pork producer, was purchased by China’s WH Group for $4.7 billion. The deal
gave the company control of America’s and the world’s largest pork production and more than 130,000 acres of U.S. farmland, raising questions about food security and foreign ownership.
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Confucius Institutes (CIs), Beijing-funded language and culture programs criticized by lawmakers and security experts for disseminating pro-CCP narratives and restricting academic freedom, once operated at George Mason University, William & Mary College, and Old Dominion University, He noted. Though many CIs shuttered by 2021, China
rebranded those that remained open in U.S. universities, and they continue to carry out similar activities.
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He said the CCP has also spread its influence at the K–12 level. Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology in Alexandria, Virginia—ranked among the nation’s top public schools—and its nonprofit arm allegedly accepted $3.6 million from entities linked to China in exchange for access to its curriculum and teaching models, fueling concerns over intellectual
property transfer.
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Chinese Students and Scholars Associations (CSSAs) are present at Virginia universities and maintain ties to the CCP’s United Front, he noted. According to the State Department, the Chinese regime
monitors Chinese students through the CSSA, and some CSSA chapters have openly admitted that they are funded and supported by Chinese diplomatic missions in the United States. Some students have
attempted to forcibly cancel events or speeches hosted by overseas dissident groups at U.S. universities.
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He said that Virginia Tech has faced scrutiny for its
partnership with Xidian University in China, which has ties to the CCP’s People’s Liberation Army, raising concerns that such collaborations risk transferring sensitive technologies.In August 2020, a Chinese researcher at the University of Virginia was
arrested for allegedly attempting to steal proprietary research in biomimetics and fluid dynamics, though charges were dropped the following month. According to He, this case nonetheless heightened concerns about intellectual property theft.
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Separately, U.S. ports, including Hampton Roads port in Virginia, rely on more than 30 Chinese-made cranes, according to He. Lawmakers have
voiced concern that such “smart cranes,” which use advanced sensors and software, could potentially be exploited for surveillance near critical naval facilities.
Espionage Cases in Virginia
He also mentioned several espionage cases.
In March, Michael Charles Schena, a State Department employee with top-secret clearance, was
charged with conspiracy to gather and transmit defense information to China.
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In January, John Harold Rogers, a former senior adviser at the Federal Reserve and resident of Vienna, Virginia, was
arrested for allegedly
conspiring with Chinese contacts to steal sensitive economic data.
In 2024, a 26-year-old Chinese graduate student was sentenced to six months in prison for flying a drone over the Newport News shipyard, where nuclear-powered carriers and submarines are built. He was
deported in May over national security concerns.
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In 2008, defense analyst Gregg Bergersen of Alexandria was
sentenced to nearly five years in prison for selling classified U.S. weapons sales data to a Chinese intermediary.
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Members of the U.S. Navy and shipyard workers watch as Marine One, carrying U.S. President Donald Trump, lands on the deck of USS Gerald R. Ford CVN 78 that is being built at Newport News shipbuilding, in Newport News, Virginia, on March 2, 2017. Mark Wilson/Getty Images
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The Bigger Picture
According to He, all these cases reflect a broad spectrum of CCP activities in Virginia, ranging from media influence and land ownership to research partnerships and espionage. The CCP exploits America’s freedom and uses it as an opportunity to infiltrate and undermine the United States, He said.
He said that Virginia’s strategic assets make it an inevitable target and that vigilance is necessary to safeguard U.S. security interests.
“Their communist ideology drives them to exploit democracy, export transnational suppression, and cover up their own human rights violations,” he said.
Li Chen contributed to this report.
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