Perspective: China SyndromeThe Chinese Influence Effort Hiding in Plain Sight

In late January, in the auditorium of the Technische Universität Berlin, a thousand patriotic voices swelled in song for a different rising power: China. The Lunar New Year gala, in late January, was a glitzy, occasionally ear-splitting affair organized by half a dozen Chinese student associations at top universities in Berlin and Brandenburg state, which encircles it. On the face of it, the event was unremarkable, a party to usher in the Year of the Pig. Yet it had deeper meaning: In addition to organizing parties and cultural events, the 80 Chinese student associations in Germany, which represent 60,000 students from the People’s Republic of China, are pieces of a Europe-wide puzzle of organizations. Perhaps numbering in the thousands, and meticulously fit together by Beijing, these associations support the Chinese Communist Party’s ideology and goals—and its narrative about China—among both Chinese and Europeans, and try to ensure that its overseas citizens, and others of ethnic Chinese descent, are loyal. Didi Kirsten Tatlow writes in The Atlantic that like mushroom tendrils spreading unseen for miles beneath the forest floor, this network remains largely invisible to Europeans and their leaders, who broadly lack the necessary Chinese-language skills and familiarity with Communist Party politics. It seeks not simply to shape the conversation about China in Europe, but also to bring back technology and expertise. While the effort is driven by the party, crucial to its implementation is an opaque and little-known Beijing-based agency known as the United Front Work Department. A as part of efforts to build China into a global science and technology leader—a push that has already raised concerns Beijing is attempting to build its technological bona fides by acquiring Western companies and through economic espionage—it also seeks to mine researchers for information.