Hijacking the mainstream
CCP influence agencies and their operations in Italian parliamentary and local politics
Livia Codarin, Laura Harth and Jichang Lulu 20th November 2021∗
∗Last edited on 22nd November 2021.
Summary of findings and recommendations
Recent controversy on the overt alignment of some senior Italian politicians with Chinese Communist Party (CCP) talking points has attracted overdue atten- tion, yet failed to expose the broader phenomenon behind it: the party’s centrally- guided efforts to shape policy and public opinion by influencing élite figures across Italy’s political spectrum, an instance of its global influence work.
This paper provides the first overview of the Italian activity of external influ- ence agencies across the systems that compose the CCP-led apparatus, including three case studies that illustrate multi-system operations targeting Italian polit- ics from the national to the municipal level. The CCP International Liaison De- partment (ILD), the Chinese Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries (CPAFFC), the China Council for the Promotion of International Trade (CCPIT), as well as units in the party’s propaganda and united front systems and fronts linked to intelligence agencies, the cases show, are key actors in efforts to coopt parliamentarians, political parties, local officials and mainstream voices in think tanks and the media.
Using politicians, lobbyists and other local intermediaries as proxies, these op- erations repurpose democratic institutions as instruments of CCP policy. Vague appeals to ‘friendship’, ‘culture’ and trade help enlist mainstream, often CCP- critical figures as unwitting endorsers of a discourse-engineering endeavour: the installation of propaganda memes that normalise the CCP’s totalitarian rule and global expansion. Surrendering policy-making creativity to this new common sense, parliamentary circles have relayed propaganda whitewashing the party’s human rights abuses, while local governments joined a ‘Belt and Road’-themed network set up by a CCP influence agency.
The knowledge asymmetry between CCP influence agencies and their targets is a vulnerability these operations exploit. Unfamiliarity with influence agencies and tactics compromises the integrity of political institutions by making them easy cooption targets. Effective policy-making towards a balanced relationship with China requires knowledge of CCP influence work.
Policy-makers have tools at their disposal to address these vulnerabilities.
1. Government bodies and political parties should build a cordon sanitaire around the CCP’s influence agencies, avoiding interactions that turn them into their instruments.
2. Senators and MPs should reclaim Parliament from totalitarian cooption, de- clining to endorse parliamentary ‘China friendship’ groups and other plat- forms acting as effective proxies for the ILD and other CCP influence agen- cies.
3. At the local level, authorities should focus exchanges with PRC counter- parts on legitimate issues within their competencies, avoiding induction into propaganda initiatives pursued by CPAFFC, CCPIT and their local fa- cilitators.
4. Bodies such as the parliamentary security and foreign affairs committees and individual legislators should investigate CCP influence operations, bring- ing transparency and accountability by scrutinising government exchanges with PRC counterparts and publicly disclosing their own.
5. Parliamentary bodies and political parties should use regular briefings to make up-to-date research on CCP influence available to parliamentarians and local officials.
6. A democratic consensus across the political spectrum in Italy and its allies should support an adaptation of the legislative framework to effectively counter foreign interference.
Contents
Summary of findings and recommendations 2
0 Introduction: Italy’s Belt-and-Road fever as a symptom of the progression of the CCP’s global influence 4
0.1 Systems, agencies, fronts, cooptees: The CCP’s external influence machinery and its methods 5
0.1.1 Engineering common sense: The goals of influence work 5
0.1.2 Spectra of cooption: Frenemies as influence targets 7
0.1.3 Faux amis: Translating influence tactics into common-sense ‘diplomacy’ 8
0.1.4 Systems of influence: The party-led agencies behind cooption work 9
0.2 Scope of the study 9
1 Dramatis personae: The CCP’s political influence agencies and their Italian operations 11
1.1 The foreign affairs system: By-passing diplomacy to influence states 11
1.1.1 The ILD and the New Comintern 12
1.1.2 The CPAFFC and “friendship associations” 15
1.2 The economic system: Trade promotion as a by-word for political influence 17
1.2.1 CCPIT and “China chambers of commerce” 18
1.3 The propaganda system: Implanting the truth in everyone’s head 19
1.3.1 The Propaganda Department and its fronts 20
1.3.2 Media organs and “borrowed boats” 22
1.4 Intelligence agencies and fronts 24
1.4.1 Two GONGOs and their intelligence links 25
1.5 The united front system 26
1.5.1 The UFWD 27
1.5.2 The CPPCC 27
1.5.3 “Reunification” shops and coopted diaspora groups 28
2 Making friends and coopting frenemies: Parliament as an arena of influence work 30
2.1 The Parliamentary Italy-China Friendship Association: Telling the Tibet story well 30
2.1.1 The Friends’ recent leadership 31
2.1.2 The Friends’ friends: The ILD and the united front system 32
2.1.3 Friendship at work: promoting “the new Tibet” 33
2.2 The Institute for Chinese Culture: Expanding the party’s ‘circle of friends’ 34
2.2.1 ICC and Italian politics: A foothold in the mainstream 34
2.2.2 ICC’s partners: The ILD and the propaganda system 37
2.2.3 More politics than culture: ICC’s propaganda work 39
2.2.4 Critics as legitimisers: Mainstreaming propaganda 41
3 CCP influence at the subnational level 45
3.1 The Italy-China Link Association: A CPAFFC/CCPIT subnational facilitator 45
3.1.1 A network of consultants’ potential for localised influence work 45
3.1.2 ICLA as a CPAFFC and CCPIT intermediary 47
3.1.3 Coopting local governments into the Belt and Road 51
4 Conclusions and perspectives 55
4.1 A multi-system influence effort 55
4.2 Exploiting knowledge asymmetry to redefine the mainstream 56
4.3 Beyond a few case studies: Perspectives for further research 57
5 Addressing knowledge asymmetry: Policy recommendations 60
5.1 A cordon sanitaire around CCP influence agencies 61
5.2 Reclaiming Parliament from totalitarian cooption 61
5.3 Resisting local-level influence operations 62
5.4 Knowledge to protect the political integrity of influence targets 62
5.5 The public’s right to know: Responding to grey-zone influence activity with transparency
and accountability 63
5.6 Pooled strengths and a democratic consensus for a balanced relationship 63
Acknowledgements 64
0 Introduction: Italy’s Belt-and-Road fever as a symp- tom of the progression of the CCP’s global influence
Triggered by some leading politicians’ overt alignment with Xiist policy themes, the CCP’s influence in Italian politics recently gained attention in Italy’s public debate. The attention was overdue. However, as this paper will show, the recent, more visible manifestations it has focused on only instantiate a deeper phenomenon. This study places the theatre of tributary submission in the context of the CCP’s work to influ- ence global policy-making and discourse. Influence operations, the task of an array of agencies led by the party centre, operate on individuals and institutions away from media scrutiny, typically by proxy. The analysis of case studies of cultivation activities in parliamentary and local politics will show that influence work is the more effect- ive the closer its targets are to the mainstream of local political discourse. Behind the pantomime of submission and alignment, the party’s influence agencies act methodic- ally to coopt mainstream figures as endorsers and legitimisers of CCP-friendly views, incorporating their acceptance into the conventional wisdom. This paper will aim to sketch some the methods the CCP uses to elicit the performance of acts of alignment and endorsement.
Like elsewhere, the paroxysms of adulation Xi’s tenure elicits in the CCP’s partners awoke Italy’s public debate to effects of CCP influence operations that had otherwise proceeded quietly for decades. In early 2019, a new ruling coalition that included an emergent CCP-friendly political force upgraded Italy’s relationship with the PRC past the threshold of attention of Italian news reporting and commentary. The country’s signature of a memorandum of understanding on Xi Jinping’s “Belt and Road” Initi- ative (BRI, ), a symbolic act of subordination, helped catalyse an emerging awareness of the need to scrutinise interactions between Italian politics and CCP- controlled agencies. With repeated posts on his blog in support of CCP policies in Xinjiang and meetings with two successive PRC ambassadors, Beppe Grillo, the leader of the Five Star Movement (Movimento 5 Stelle), helped make some politicians’ align- ment with CCP propaganda the topic of wide media coverage.1 Scrutiny of agreements between Italian and CCP-controlled media also gained traction as the CCP’s external propaganda machine mobilised its assets to engineer a party-friendly narrative on the Covid-19 pandemic.2 A broader sample of the CCP’s foreign influence agencies’ recent history of Italian operations emerged in research that notably discussed the local activities of one of the main CCP-led organs active in the cooption of foreign politicians.3
This long-overdue interest in the CCP’s influence in Italy has, however, so far largely focused on its most farcical surface manifestations. As the experience elsewhere has
1“Grillo e le visite top secret all’ambasciatore cinese, è polemica”, Corriere.it, 25th Nov. 2019; “Ecco come nasce l’asse tra Grillo e i cinesi (c’entra la Casaleggio)”, Linkiesta, 28th Nov. 2019; Fabio Massimo Parenti, “Il nostro silenzio sulla piaga del terrorismo in Xinjiang”, Beppe Grillo blog, 13th Sept. 2019; ““In Cina nessuna repressione”: l’ultimo delirio del blog di Grillo”, Il Giornale (21st Nov. 2019); Ferruccio Michelin, “Nessuna persecuzione in Xinjiang. Parola di Pechino? No, di Grillo”, Formiche, 19th Nov. 2018.
2Laura Harth, “Così la macchina di propaganda cinese penetra nei media italiani”, Formiche, 16th Jan. 2020; eadem, “Propaganda cinese (e ruolo della Rai). Laura Harth sollecita il Parlamento”, Formiche, 9th Apr. 2020; Gabriele Carrer, “Si scrive Rai, si legge TelePechino. Se il servizio pubblico parla cinese (troppo?)”, Formiche, 8th Apr. 2020.
3Lucrezia Poggetti, “China’s growing political influence in Italy: a case study of Beijing’s influencing
tactics in Europe”, The art of deceit: How China and Russia use sharp power to subvert the West, ed. by Andrew Foxall & John Hemmings, Henry Jackson Society, Dec. 2019.
shown, an analysis of the CCP agencies involved in exchanges with foreign decision- makers can bring to light a logic of cooption that underlies, and goes beyond, public displays of CCP alignment: influence operations are most effective when least visible. The occasionally ostentatious relay of propaganda by senior politicians masks longer- term cooption activity that operates on the fabric of democratic politics. Parliament and subnational government are key arenae for such influence work. This policy paper aims to inform such key stakeholders in both these arenae and build up democratic resilience.
Democratic legislatures are familiar loci of CCP influence. In Australia, a key actor in CCP influence operations, eventually expelled from the country, built relationships with multiple parliamentarians, notably helping a senator pay a legal bill.4 In New Zealand, both major parties have selected individuals with links to CCP influence agencies as MPs, giving the CCP a presence in parliament that hedged against demo- cratic alternation.5 In the European Parliament, a “China friendship group” helped facilitate interactions between the CCP influence apparatus, politicians from mul- tiple parties and countries, and further élite individuals, until the exposure of its links led to media coverage, parliamentary scrutiny, and eventually its suspension sine die.6
The less familiar subnational arena invites quieter influence work. In it, CCP proxies can benefit from welcoming attitudes among local officials far from by the scrutiny that often follows national government decisions. Localisation as an influence tac- tic exploits both the relative autonomy of subnational decision-making and a lack of interest from academic, media and other analysts.7
0.1 Systems, agencies, fronts, cooptees: The CCP’s external influ- ence machinery and its methods
Influence on foreign societies helps the CCP advance foreign policy goals and protect and consolidate its authoritarian monopoly of power in the PRC. A dedicated appar- atus embedded in party, state, army and satellite structures uses proxies and neutral- looking platforms to coopt élites abroad into alignment with the party’s external and domestic policies.
0.1.1 Engineering common sense: The goals of influence work
Compared to methods of power projection more familiar to foreign audiences, such as state-to-state diplomacy, state-linked investment, overt propaganda and military en- gagement, influence operations are cheap, low-risk and effective, offering both quick achievements and long-term results. The costs of the cultivation of, e.g., politicians,
4Alex Joske, “The party speaks for you: Foreign interference and the Chinese Communist Party’s united front system”, ASPI Policy Brief 32 (2020), pp. 20 sqq.
5Anne-Marie Brady, “Magic Weapons: China’s political influence activities under Xi Jinping”, Wilson Center, Sept. 2017, p. 18 et passim; Jichang Lulu, “United Frontlings always win”, China Heritage (18th Sept. 2017); idem, “New Zealand: United Frontlings bearing gifts”, Sinopsis, 16th Nov. 2018.
6idem, “Repurposing democracy: The European Parliament China friendship cluster”, Sinopsis,
26th Nov. 2019; “Český europoslanec na Hedvábné stezce”, Sinopsis, 17th May 2019;“Hearing of the Com- mittee on Foreign Interference in all Democratic Processes in the European Union, including Disinforma- tion”, European Parliament Multimedia Centre, 25th Jan. 2021,15:21:40 – 15:24:41
7For case studies of localised influence work in Europe, see Jichang Lulu, “Confined discourse manage- ment and the PRC’s localised interactions in the Nordics”, Sinopsis, 22nd Oct. 2018.
bureaucrats, diplomats, businesspeople, academics, think-tankers — junior and senior, current and former, from cities and towns to states and international organisations — are just those of setting up platforms, organising events and trips, maintaining per- sonal links, occasionally offering remuneration or employment. These costs pale in comparison to those required to establish economic dominance or military coercion. The results of these operations can include information, technology transfer, propa- ganda by proxy and policy alignment, by enough actors across the elite of a target polity to hedge against the dynamic change inherent to open societies.
By moulding élite thinking and installing unstated assumptions in public debate, in- fluence work makes target-country decision-making amenable to collaboration with the CCP’s aggressive foreign policy and projection of oppresive power. Élite voices that endorse CCP initiatives help counter or preempt international criticism of the party’s totalitarian rule, forming a global chorus of approval endorsing the margin- alisation and repression of any domestic dissent. Élite collaborators incorporate CCP propaganda memes into public discourse: tributary adherence to Xi’s ‘Belt and Road’ geopolitical scheme, which to targets means dependence or empty promises, is made to feel synonymous with integration into global trade; institutional support for global human rights is portrayed as needlessly antagonising trading partners; continental al- liances are undermined to the benefit of a ‘win-win’ relationship with the party’s be- nevolent centre. As propaganda memes populate ‘legitimate’ public debate, subordin- ating the national interest to Beijing’s becomes the default reflex — indeed Gramscian ‘common sense’ (“the philosophy of the non-philosophers”), “acritically absorbed” shared assumptions and modes of thought, is the concept that framed Sinological scholarship’s foundational treatment of contemporary united front work, the CCP’s technique for controlling social sectors through its chosen representatives.8
The signing away of Italy’s national interest in favour of Xi’s BRI signalled the ripe- ness of CCP-moulded common sense. CCP propaganda idioms and talking points — the “Maritime Silk Road”, “linking” BRI to EU strategy, “mutually beneficial” cooper- ation — adopted in official comuniqués and documents, show how an ideology of submission percolates into prestigious officialese and becomes the default of policy options.9 Once adopted by mainstream figures, CCP memes become the propaganda of the non-propagandists.
8Antonio Gramsci, Quaderni del carcere, ed. by Valentino Gerratana, Einaudi, 1977, Quaderno 8, §173,
p. 1045; Gerry Groot, “Managing transitions: the Chinese Communist Party’s united front work, minor parties and groups, hegemony and corporatism”, PhD thesis, University of Adelaide, 1997, pp. 21 sqq. et passim. On the evolving meaning of ‘common sense’ in Gramsci’s work, broader than the one used by Groot and here, see Giuseppe Cospito, “Senso comune/buon senso”, Materialismo storico 2 (2018). On united front work, see 1.5 below; on managed corporatist representation as seen by the Grootian tradition, Ray Wang & Gerry Groot, “Who Represents? Xi Jinping’s Grand United Front Work, Legitimation, Participation and Consultative Democracy”, Journal of Contemporary China 27.112 (2018).
9“Memorandum d’intesa tra il Governo della Repubblica Italiana e il Governo della Repubblica Popolare Cinese sulla collaborazione nell’ambito della “Via della Seta economica” e dell’ “Iniziativa per una Via della Seta marittima del 21° secolo””, Governo Italiano, Mar. 2019. A draft of the latest triennial plan for strengthening cooperation between the PRC and Italy continued to use similar language (Gabriele Carrer & Laura Harth, “Addio Via della Seta? Non così in fretta. Il documento esclusivo diretto a P. Chigi”, Formiche, 15th June 2021).
0.1.2 Spectra of cooption: Frenemies as influence targets
Global influence work extends to the outside world methods the CCP employs in the territory it controls.10 These mechanisms surround the party ‘vanguard’ with con- centric layers of disposable subordinates, proxies, allies and circumstantially useful entities. Foreign ‘friends’ mostly inhabit the outer reaches of this extended influence apparatus.11
As cooption extends away from the centre, each component of the party’s relation- ship with its influence targets spans a spectrum towards weaker control. A cooptee may financially depend on party-led agencies, vaguely expect future benefit, or act independently of or inadvertently contrary to their economic interest. They may dir- ectly work for CCP influence organs, unknowingly cooperate with their fronts and proxies, or align themselves with their goals thanks to indirect influence on a broader environment.
‘Frenemies’ — those least directly, often unwittingly coopted into influence opera- tions — are more valuable tools the further a target environment is from the domain of enforcement of totalitarian control. In open societies abroad, where the party lacks the coercive power required to control media and education, the stereotypical ‘friend of China’ who faithfully relays domestic propaganda comes across as a comic mouth- piece and reaches only a fringe of public and élite opinion. On the other hand, voices generally critical of the party’s domestic rule but aligned with party narratives and policy objectives concerning a local target at a given time, can bring propaganda con- tent into the ‘neutral’ mainstream. When such credible voices legitimise CCP proxies or partially endorse party talking points, they incorporate propaganda into the com- mon sense assumptions of local discourse on China. Retired diplomats, consultants or state-media interviewees promoting Xi Jinping’s prose or whitewashing his genocidal policies may cater to a small, if growing, audience that needs little convincing. Yet mainstream politics, media and think tanks are far more effective propaganda proxies if they advocate for, say, Xi’s ‘Belt and Road’ scheme while expressing disagreement with one-party rule, censorship or reeducation camps.
Coopting credibly ‘neutral’ voices and mainstreaming ‘friends’ are thus equally im- portant to influence work that aspires to shape the mainstream discourse and policy options of a target polity. The importance of the mainstream is reflected in the tactics deployed in influence operations targeting democratic societies. Rather than focus on employing mouthpieces, they seek to coopt credible élites as unwitting, loosely tethered proxies that normalise the party’s agenda and ostracise its critics as ‘ex- treme’.
10On this idea, see Martin Hála & Jichang Lulu, “The CCP’s model of social control goes global”, Sinopsis, 20th Dec. 2018.
11On the CCP’s cultivation of foreign “friends”, see Anne-Marie Brady, Making the foreign serve China: Managing foreigners in the People’s Republic, Rowman & Littlefield, 2003, pp. 7 sqq. et passim.
0.1.3 Faux amis: Translating influence tactics into common-sense ‘diplomacy’
The methods of CCP influence work rarely fit into categories familiar from the ex- ternal activity of democratic polities, which bureaucratically separate diplomacy, trade, defence and intelligence, and — in principle — delimit state functions from party politics, government from business, cooperation from hostility and the legal from the clandestine.
The very incommensurability of CCP and democratic external engagement creates a knowledge asymmetry further exploited in influence operations: targets unfamil- iar with the PRC’s political system often take party-organised ‘NGOs’, ‘think tanks’, ‘dialogue’ or ‘friendship’ at face value. The use of front organisations and platforms relies on such faux amis to coopt foreign counterparts, framing operations as boxes for targets to check in their native officialese: exchanges down semi-official ‘tracks’, ‘trade’ promotion, ‘conference’ tourism.12
‘Parliamentary diplomacy’, a common euphemism for influence operations targeting lawmakers, illustrates the faux ami tactic. The CCP-controlled National People’s Con- gress is not a ‘parliament’. Nor does cooption activity mediated by its delegates grant the foreign targets any diplomatic agency. European legislators may well believe to participate in equal exchanges with CCP-guided interlocutors, when their role in the exercise is that of targets of cultivation, recipients of tailored propaganda and legit- imisers of the organs of a totalitarian political system.13
Asymmetric exchanges where the target conceives of the coopting agency as analog- ous to its lookalikes in the democratic world provide an advantageous setting for the cultivation of the mainstream of foreign élites. Targets go through the comfortable motions learnt in exchanges with democratic counterparts, unaware of the nature of party-led agencies targeting them as potential cooptees. CCP influence agencies can draw on superior knowledge of their targets, thanks to stable, dedicated bureaucracies specialised in their study. Cooption and propaganda activities, relying on party, army and state agencies’ information-gathering capabilities, can easily avoid institutional and media scrutiny, typically focused on superficial aspects of the party’s external work.
Influence operations by-pass institutional and social mechanisms meant to put foreign diplomatic bureaucracies under democratic oversight, moving much of a target coun- try’s relationship with China to a domain where the party makes the rules.
12Martin Hála & Jichang Lulu, “Lost in translation: ‘Economic diplomacy’ with Chinese characteristics”, Sinopsis, 11th Mar. 2019.
13On a recent attempt to sell genocidal policy to Italian lawmakers under cover of ‘parliamentary dip- lomacy’, see Laura Harth, “Occhio! I parlamentari italiani rischiano di finire nella macchina della propa- ganda cinese”, Formiche, 15th Oct. 2021; eadem, “Here’s how Italian MPs risk aiding Chinese propaganda”, Formiche, 15th Oct. 2021.
0.1.4 Systems of influence: The party-led agencies behind cooption work
As with other major areas of activity in Leninist party-states, CCP influence work is not centralised in any single dedicated organ: multiple party, state and military agencies and their fronts engage in foreign influence as a variable component of their competencies, with overlapping goals, methods and targets under top-level guidance and supervision, rather than micro-managed coordination. Mapping the external in- fluence operations of these swarms of agencies requires elucidating the larger insti- tutional structures that tie them to the CCP’s top leadership.
In today’s PRC, bodies subordinate to the Politburo Standing Committee — the party’s leading body, currently composed of seven members led by General Secretary Xi — coordinate systems of organs with related functions, making a system-based analysis most adequate for the study of multi-agency influence work.14 Recent research has used a system-based paradigm to analyse influence operations in Europe and else- where, as well as to describe the external activity of one of the CCP’s main systems.15 General and country-focused studies of CCP influence work have shown the involve- ment of organs linked to multiple systems, highlighting the need for further system- based research.16
0.2 Scope of the study
This paper uses a system-based analysis to investigate interactions between Italian parliamentary groups and local politicians on one side, and CCP-linked entities on the other. Section 1 introduces the main PRC entities involved in these interactions, de- tailing their institutional position within the CCP-led political system and providing background on their operations abroad, in some cases adding previously unreported examples of their Italian activities. Section 2 presents two case studies on interac- tions between CCP-controlled agencies and Italian parliamentary groups. In section 3, an additional case study points to the extension of influence work to a less obvious, yet increasingly targeted domain: local governments. We conclude (sections 4 and 5) with summarised findings, perspectives for further research, and a set of policy recommendations.
The cases selected for this study focus on the Italian parliament as a target of CCP influence activity and stress the importance of a further target: local-level administra- tions. The study demonstrates the presence of entities from across the CCP-controlled political system in Italy, clarifying links to united front, propaganda, trade, foreign
14For a recent treatment of CCP organisational systems and their leadership, with references to earlier work, see Wen-Hsuan Tsai & Wang Zhou, “Integrated Fragmentation and the Role of Leading Small Groups in Chinese Politics”, The China Journal 82 (2019). An essential account of cross-system linkages in CCP influ- ence operations appeared in Mark Stokes & Russell Hsiao, “The People’s Liberation Army General Political Department: Political Warfare with Chinese Characteristics”, Project 2049, 14th Oct. 2013, pp. 31 sqq. The “systems of influence” turn of phrase we owe to Alex Joske.
15Joske, op. cit.; Mark Stokes, “Chinese Authoritarian Influence in the United States”, Insidious Power: How China Undermines Global Democracy, ed. by Hsu Szu-Chien & J. Michael Cole, Eastbridge, 2020; Lulu, “Repurposing democracy”.
16Brady, “Magic Weapons”; Clive Hamilton & Mareike Ohlberg, Hidden hand: exposing how the Chinese
Communist Party is reshaping the world, Hardie Grant, 2020; Ralph Weber, “Unified message, rhizomatic delivery: A preliminary analysis of PRC/CCP influence and the united front in Switzerland”, Sinopsis, 18th Dec. 2020.
affairs and intelligence agencies. It does not, however, claim to be an exhaustive, or even representative, presentation of CCP influence operations in Italy, a subject re- quiring further research. Neither did we aim to cover the entire history of the relations between the Italian political entities under study and CCP-linked agencies, focusing instead on recent interactions of on-going relevance. The three entities in our case studies (sections 2 and 3), a few we highlight in passing (e.g., pp. 25, 57), and yet others linked to the apparatus sketched in section 1 may all reward further empirical research with policy-relevant insights on the CCP’s influence operations in Italy.
This brief aims to inform policy. The influence mechanisms it describes operate out- side, or at the blurred frontier of, the state-to-state arena where democratic policy- makers may expect to interact with a foreign régime. Through these operations, a to- talitarian party-state repurposes as tools of its expansionist policy democratic instru- ments it does not tolerate in its controlled territory: plural politics, locally-accountable institutions, competing interest groups, civil society organisations.
The knowledge asymmetry between these typically locally-focused actors and party- controlled agencies with a state’s resources at its disposal creates a vulnerability these operations can effectively exploit. A lack of familiarity with the party’s influence op- erations often works to the detriment of individuals unwittingly coopted for propa- ganda goals – much as such goals may run counter to their overall track record, as cases in this study demonstrate. Knowledge asymmetry lets politicians get coopted into circles of useful propagandists of trains-on-time totalitarian ‘goodness’. This brief seeks to help undo the knowledge asymmetry that makes plural societies vulnerable to totalitarian influence work; it is, therefore, not to be read as criticism of the indi- viduals or organisations mentioned in the study. By exposing the nature and goals of the party-led agencies behind these operations, our research instead highlights the risks of naïve collaboration with totalitarian influence, hopefully helping stakeholders build the informed preparedness that interactions with today’s China demand.
Einaudi’s motto – conoscere per deliberare17 – could inform the construction of mech- anisms that make potential targets (politicians, parties, institutions) aware of the logic of CCP influence work. The same public knowledge of these operations could subject those who choose to give their informed consent to the objectives of the CCP’s influ- ence agencies to public scrutiny and accountability.
17Luigi Einaudi, “Conoscere per deliberare”, Prediche inutili, Einaudi, 1964.
1 Dramatis personae: The CCP’s political influence agen- cies and their Italian operations
Far from being centralised in one agency, CCP influence operations in Italy involve organs across party-state structures. This section presents a sample of influence agen- cies, focused on the ones covered in the case studies, adding background on their position within the political system as well as their activities targeting Italy.
These agencies largely fall under four of the CCP’s main systems: foreign affairs, finance and economy, propaganda and united front, in some cases with further links to civilian and military intelligence. The omission of other agencies should not be taken to imply they are less active overall, or absent in Italy. Systems discussed here only in passing are otherwise central to foreign influence work. The political and legal system includes civilian security and intelligence agencies and their fronts.18 The People’s Liberation Army (PLA) engages in influence work with often similar targets and methods to those of civilian agencies.19 The PLA intelligence links of a PRC energy company and its sister NGO made these influence operations particularly salient in the Czech Republic and at the United Nations.20 That case further illustrates how private business can be as effective a tool of CCP policy as those under state ownership.21 In particular, political influence activities conducted by party-state agencies and the international expansion of PRC (state or private) technology companies support each other, a synergy illustrated in section 3.1.3.22
1.1 The foreign affairs system: By-passing diplomacy to influence states
Under the “total diplomacy” concept, the CCP’s foreign policy apparatus attaches as much importance to influence activities outside state-to-state channels as to the tra- ditional diplomatic activities of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs ( , MFA). That ministry is only a component of a system overseen by the party’s Central Foreign Affairs Work Commission ( ).23 The foreign affairs system in- cludes party organs and state agencies such as the MFA, as well as their front or- ganisations. Continuing a Leninist tradition whose institutionalisation began in the 1920s, “friendly contacts” managed by party cadre allow the CCP to directly cultivate foreign elites even in the absence of good diplomatic relations.
18The Italian links of an organisation linked to intelligence agencies are noted in 1.4.1.
19The classical treatment of PLA liaison work is Stokes & Hsiao, op. cit. See 1.4.1 for the relevant links of an entity active in Italy.
20Sinopsis & Jichang Lulu, “United Nations with Chinese characteristics: Elite capture and discourse
management on a global scale”, Sinopsis, 25th June 2018; Martin Hála, “United Front Work by Other Means: China’s “Economic Diplomacy” in Central and Eastern Europe”, China Brief 19.9 (9th May 2019).
21In a generalised sense, business acts as a further system, no less organically active in CCP influ- ence work than party, government and PLA agencies. Anne-Marie Brady, China as a Polar Great Power, Cambridge University Press, 2017, pp. 134 sqq. introduced the concept of the “party-state-military-market nexus”.
22Huawei’s European activities further demonstrate these synergies. See Martin Hála & Jichang Lulu,
“Huawei’s Christmas battle for Central Europe”, Sinopsis, 28th Dec. 2018.
23On the Commission’s recent institutional history, see Charmian Goh et al., “Unbundling systems: For- eign affairs reform in China’s provinces”, Sinopsis, 11th Apr. 2021, p. 2 n. 3.
1.1.1 The ILD and the New Comintern
The International Liaison Department (ILD, ) under the Central Committee is the main party organ in charge of exchanges with foreign elites outside state-to-state diplomacy. The ILD’s main targets are foreign politicians and political parties, think tanks and academics, and NGOs. The public aspect of these contacts allows the CCP to build an image as a legitimate partner of democratic political life, a domestic and external propaganda achievement beyond the capabilities of other to- talitarian parties. Less visibly, the ILD’s dedicated units deploy expertise on targeted domains and locales to build relationships with key foreign individuals and entities that may eventually help align discourse and policy-making with CCP goals. Not- ably through its relationship with foreign think tanks, the ILD helps promote the party’s geopolitical projects, such as Xi’s ‘Belt and Road’ and other regional initiat- ives.24
ILD interactions with foreigners typically consist of the exchange of visits with en- tities it treats as privileged interlocutors and the organisation of international events. As the ILD’s first head once put it, stressing the “political character” of the task of en- tertaining delegations, its goal is “to ‘brainwash’ foreign guests, to the extent possible washing away through our work the mistakes, distortions and lack of understanding of New China generated by the influence of Western reactionary propaganda”, so as to “expand our country’s international united front”.25 His successor, current ILD head Song Tao , notes that CCP foreign affairs work is a “sacred duty” based on “main- taining political security” that plays “an important role in consolidating party rule”.26 The ILD’s struggle to “constantly expand our party’s international ‘circle of friends’, creating high-level dialogues between the CCP and the world’s political parties” and other “important platforms” helps “tell the CCP’s story well, arousing an international ‘CCP fever’ and ‘Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics in the New Era fever’ ” that has “raised our party’s global influence”, “further increasing the numbers of those who understand and support us” against the “smears and slander” of “forces with ulterior motives”.27 “In each country, our party has old friends, true friends”, some of whose exchanges with the party are the fruits of “seeds planted in their youth”; by now, they have become “important links promoting friendly co- operation”:28 “one after another, numerous friendly parties and political organisa- tions abroad have stood for us on issues such as China-US trade frictions, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Xinjiang, Tibet, the South China Sea and the fight against the Covid pan- demic, building strong international momentum in support of our party’s righteous stance”.29
The ILD’s Italian activity goes back to the CCP’s relationship with the Italian Com- munist Party (Partito Comunista Italiano, PCI) and later the PCI’s Maoist splinter group. The department employed some of the first students the PRC government sent abroad to learn Italian in the 1950s, who would mediate the CCP’s exchanges with
24On the ILD’s role in BRI-themed propaganda and cooption activities, see Nadège Rolland, “Mapping the footprint of Belt and Road influence operations”, Sinopsis, 12th Aug. 2019.
25
26宋涛, “赓续对外工作百年辉煌 服务中华民族伟大复兴”, 求是 9 (2021).
28孟祥麟, 黄发红 & 刘歌, “服务民族复兴 促进人类进步（2019 年度国际特别报道）”, 人民日报
29宋涛, op. cit.
Italian communists and later an expanding range of political figures.30 The ILD’s 8th Bureau is its main unit targeting Western European politics. Italy falls within the pur- view of the bureau’s Southern Europe Division, in recent years led by area specialists with Italian-language skills.31 ILD cadre have hosted and accompanied Italian polit- ical delegations to China, representing different parties, featuring both senior and — reflecting Song Tao’s “planting seeds” dictum — young politicians.32 The department also maintains exchanges with united front-linked diaspora groups in Italy.33
Through one of its fronts, the China NGO Network for International Exchanges (CNIE, ), the ILD coordinates some of the external activities of hundreds of Chinese government-organised NGOs (GONGOs).34 A fo- cus of CNIE’s activity is the installation of the CCP’s concept of human rights at the Human Rights Council and other international organisations, cooperating with front entities of other CCP agencies, such as CSHRS, discussed below.35 In addition to its role in multi-agency influence work at international organisations, CNIE participates in the ILD’s engagement with foreign think tanks, NGOs and other influential fig- ures through its own platforms. In Italy, the Centro Studi sulla Cina Contemporanea (CSCC), led by Alberto Bradanini, a former ambassador to China,36 is a member of
30The career of the ILD Italian translator Xia Fanglin illustrates this history. Xia studied abroad in the 1950s, was among ILD cadres interacting with the Italian Communist Party (Marxist-Leninist) in the 1970s, and continued to accompany delegations to Italy as an interpreter in the 1980s. See Feng Ye, “L’apprendimento della morfologia verbale dell’italiano L2 in studenti sinofoni nel contesto universitario cinese”, PhD thesis, Università degli Studi di Firenze, 2020, p. 36; , “ ”,
24th Oct. 1974; “Delegazione cinese in Palazzo Vecchio”, l’Unità (11th May 1980).
31
信 561 [5th Apr. 2016]; “旅葡侨团联合欢迎中国共产党代表团访问葡萄牙”, 葡华报, via 微
大,利8th Sept. 2019; “旅意福建华人华侨同乡总会热烈欢迎中共友好代表团 福建省友好代表团来访意
that capacity in one of our case studies (section 2.2.2).
”, 重庆大学, 31st Oct. 2018). He appears in
32“意大利民主党代表团到管城区进行考察社会主义新农村建设”, 郑州市外办, 3rd Sept. 2012; “意大
33“旅意福建华人华侨同乡总会热烈欢迎中共友好代表团 福建省友好代表团来访意大利”; “意大利
CNIE is led by ILD cadres, effectively being managed as a bureau-level unit of the department. A fuller discussion of CNIE’s institutional position and international activity is given in Jichang Lulu, “The CCP International Liaison Department’s role in external influence operations”, forthcoming.
35“ 34 ”,
Bradanini has become a frequent public commentator on China, often airing views aligned with CCP propaganda talking points. He has praised the PRC’s “multipolar strategy”, which “favours peace and bal- ance in the world”, offering the developing world a “Beijing Consensus” that promises “welfare and pro- gress” instead of “submission” to the US (Alberto Bradanini, “La Repubblica Popolare di Cina e l’Italia festeggiano i loro primi 50 anni”, CRI, 6th Nov. 2020; on the “multilateral” branding of CCP initiatives in external propaganda, see Sinopsis & Lulu, op. cit.). He counts Italy among developing countries, since it has become “subordinate to the US” and “renounced its institutional and monetary sovereignty” by “investing in the chimeric perspective” of the “United States of Europe” (Alberto Bradanini, “Belt and Road. Ex Ambas- ciatore Bradanini: Opportunità per l’Italia,considerando limiti strutturali”, Scenari Internazionali [1st Oct. 2019]). On Xinjiang and what he calls “Uyghur terrorism”, he refrains from denying the existence of reedu- cation camps, while calling BBC reporting on it “manipulated”, since the press’s priorities “must serve the dominant American-centric oligarchies” (Claudio Landi, “La condizione degli Uiguri in Cina. Intervista ad Alberto Bradanini”, Radio Radicale, 31st July 2020). Cf. Poggetti, op. cit.
Figure 1: Seminar on “human rights” coorganised by the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung and ILD front CAFIU, March 2021. Source: CCTV.
one of these platforms, the ILD-led Silk Road NGO Cooperation Network (
, SIRONET).37 CCP propaganda has quoted Bradanini’s praise of Xi’s initiative, highlighting CSCC’s role in researching BRI-themed cooper- ation between Europe and China.38
The ILD’s primary front is the China Association for International Understanding (CAFIU, ), set up in the early 1980s as the ILD failed to restore its control over the foreign affairs system’s main ‘friendship’ front, the CPAFFC.39 Like other fronts, CAFIU is effectively a unit of the Department, led by career ILD cadres.40 As its then secretary-general put it in 2014, it is “an urgent duty of our coun- try’s people-to-people external exchanges” to “constantly improve the expression of China’s discourse power”, “especially in external propaganda work”; CAFIU’s “un- derstanding and cooperation dialogue events”, attended by “current and former polit- ical leaders as well as famous specialist scholars and representatives of international organisations and non-government organisations”, some of whom have “repeatedly visited China” and “have a certain understanding of it” while others almost entirely lack it, require “design and differentiation” and attention to foreigners’ “questions and suggestions” in order to “increase the effectiveness of our external propaganda work”.41
In Europe, CAFIU partners include the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung (FES), a political found- ation affiliated with the Social Democratic Party (SPD). A 2018 CAFIU-FES event at- tended by CAFIU’s secretary-general and FES then-leader Kurt Beck, a former SPD chair, shows the ILD front attending to those urgent needs: the “understanding” and “cooperation” vocabulary in its title reflected CAFIU’s framing of its activities; Beck was a useful partner, indeed a “former politician” who had shown “understanding”
37Lulu, op. cit.; “成员单位”, SIRONET, 2nd Nov. 2017; “Consiglio direttivo”.
39Lulu, “Repurposing democracy”, p. 21 n. 105; 吴兴唐, “乔石：我在中联部打下了很好的基础对它永 Lulu, “The CCP International Liaison Department’s role in external influence operations”.
41“ ”, , via , 22nd July 2014.
of CCP wishes in his day, and still wielded “discourse power” as head of one of Ger- many’s largest political think tanks.42 FES’s collaboration with CAFIU has helped ex- pand CCP discourse power at international organisations: the Foundation coorgan- ised a side event at the 2021 session of the UN Human Rights Council, diluting the concept of human rights to embrace a “shared future” tolerant of totalitarian human rights violations.43 A China trip by politicians, think-tankers and other élite figures from the Baltic States and Romania in 2016, where CAFIU acted the highest-level host- ing agency, demonstrated the Association’s role in influence operations.44 Estonian participants were so flattered by their treatment at the hands of CCP influence agen- cies that upon their return they disseminated propaganda on the PRC’s willingness to “share its vision with everybody”, since “nobody is too small […] for China”.45
Two case studies in section 2 illustrate the growing profile of ILD-partnered groups in the Italian parliament.
1.1.2 The CPAFFC and “friendship associations”
The Chinese People’s Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries (CPAFFC,
) is the CCP foreign affairs system’s main “people’s dip- lomacy” agency. The central-level organ, managed by, while not administratively sub- ordinate to, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, has equivalents at lower levels of admin- istration, typically as nameplates used by local Foreign Affairs Offices.46 The CPAFFC plays a key role in localised influence work, targeting subnational governments and other organisations abroad, managing sister-city relationships and building regional and global local government exchange platforms. It often serves as the first or primary contact for foreign targets, organising and funding their trips to China for interactions with other CCP agencies.47 Previous research has studied aspects of its influence activ- ities in the Czech Republic, Germany, Italy, Switzerland, Poland, the UK, New Zealand and the US.48 The recently suspended European Parliament China Friendship Group was initiated by its secretary-general, a PRC national serving as assistant to MEPs, whose links to the CCP have included an advisor role at the Liaoning province equi- valent of the CPAFFC.49
The traditional partners of the CPAFFC and its Mao-era predecessors are “China friend- ship associations” whose establishment began in the late 1950s, initially as a new stage
42“ Kurt Beck ”, FES, 11th June
2018; cf. “Beck verlangt mehr Sensibilität gegenüber China”, Der Spiegel (20th May 2008).
43The third coorganiser was CFHRD, a human rights front of the Central Propaganda Deparment dis- cussed on p. 21 above.
44Frank Jüris, “The CCP’s influence activities in Estonia”, forthcoming.
45Ibid.; “Kuidas hoomata tuhat korda suuremat rahvast?”, Urve Tiidus blog, June 2016.
46On the CPAFFC’s institutional position and history, see Lulu, “Repurposing democracy”, p. 21 n. 105, and, in more detail, idem, “The Chinese People’s Association for Friendship with Foreign Countrties and its role in CCP influence operations”, forthcoming. On the CCP foreign affairs system (including friendship associations) at the province level, its current relationship with united front agencies, see Goh et al., op. cit.
47Lulu, “Repurposing democracy”, pp. 20 sqq.
48Olga Lomová, Jichang Lulu & Martin Hála, “Bilateral dialogue with the PRC at both ends: Czech- Chinese ‘friendship’ extends to social credit”, 28th July 2019; Didi Kirsten Tatlow, “Mapping China-in- Germany”, Sinopsis, 2nd Oct. 2019; Poggetti, op. cit.; Weber, op. cit., pp. 39 sqq.; Łukasz Sarek, “The CPAFFC as the party-state’s guardian of Polish regions’ relations with China”, Asia Explained, 7th Dec. 2020; Hamilton & Ohlberg, op. cit., ch. 7; Brady, “Magic Weapons”, p. 34; John Dotson, “China Explores Economic Outreach to U.S. States Via United Front Entities”, China Brief 19.12 (26th June 2019).
49Lulu, op. cit. On the Liaoning People’s Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries, see Goh
et al., op. cit., p. 27.
in the evolution of the Moscow-centred system of friendship societies, later expand- ing into the CCP’s own version of the network.50 The fate of the historical China friendship associations in different countries has diverged, often leading the CPAFFC to seek more adequate interlocutors as their main partners, notably for subnational influence operations.51
The network’s Italian node, the Italy-China Association (Associazione Italia-China), was established in 1962 as the CCP froze its links with the pro-Soviet PCI to cultiv- ate its own circles of pro-Beijing Italians.52 A privileged interlocutor for decades,53 the association appears to have declined in the 2010s, yielding that role to various similarly-themed organisations.54 The Italy-China Friendship Association (ICFA), led by Irene Pivetti, a former speaker of the Chamber of Deputies, later emerged as a self- identified “Italian branch” of the CPAFFC, with a notable focus on subnational-level activity.55 In 2019, the former environment minister Corrado Clini, long noted for his engagement with the PRC, emerged as president of a restored Italy-China Association at an event at the Chinese embassy, but no CPAFFC endorsement of this renewal is yet apparent.56 While both Pivetti and Clini have since encountered legal hurdles that may diminish their long-term sustainability as partners,57 CPAFFC materials have contin-
50Lulu, “The Chinese People’s Association…”
51Cf., e.g., the Czech and Polish cases, discussed in Lomová, Lulu & Hála, op. cit.; Lulu, op. cit.; Sarek, op. cit.
52Mario Filippo Pini, Italia e Cina, 60 anni tra passato e futuro, L’Asino d’oro, 2011, p. 117 The associ-
ation’s early long-time leader, Giorgio Zucchetti, worked at Radio Peking’s new Italian service, on which see n. 96 (ibid., p. 116; , “ “ ””, [25th July 1997]; “In memoria di Giorgio Zucchetti”, Associazione Italia-Cina). The association founded in 1962 was in fact a Perugia-based predecessor of the long-lived entity, set up by Zucchetti’s relative Lanfranco Mencaroni while the former was still in Beijing (Pini, op. cit., p. 108 n. 14; Sofia Graziani, “L’interesse politico-ideologico per la Cina di Mao sulla scia del contrasto sino-sovietico: alcune considerazioni sulla nascita dell’Associazione Italia-Cina (1962-1963)”, Il Mulino, 2014, pp. 156, 168 sq.). Mencaroni’s association maintained contacts with the CCP through the PRC’s Berne embassy, meeting initial support followed by a more lukewarm attitude as Beijing’s approach to the PCI evolved (ibid., pp. 165 sqq.). By 1963, the CPAFFC’s predecessor organisation distanced itself from the Perugia association’s claims of being represented by Zucchetti in China (ibid., pp. 167 sq.).
53See, e.g., “ ”, , 10th Nov. 1974; “
The Association’s last known president, Vittoria Mancini, appointed in 2006, received a CPAFFC award
好,贡1s献t F奖eb. 2006; “Nuovo presidente Associazione Italia-Cina”, Travelnostop, 27th Sept. 2006; “中意友
Mancini (pres. Associazione Italia-Cina): ”La tv ha portato il calcio nella cultura cinese. Juve, la più amata”, TuttoJuve.com, 7th Aug. 2012; Mariela Morosi, “Expo, un ponte ideale tra Roma e Pechino per promuovere gli scambi turistic”, Italia a Tavola, 9th Dec. 2014. In 2010, Radio Peking’s successor appeared to switch a partnership from the Italy-China Association, founded by one of the first workers of its Italian service, to the higher-profile Italy-China Foundation: its Radio Confucius Classroom in Rome unveiled the classroom’s nameplate with the Association as partner in late 2009, to then sign an agreement with the Foundation to actually establish it (“Roma: scoperta la targa dell’Aula Radiofonica Confucio”, CRI, 27th Oct. 2009; “Aula Radiofonica Confucio CRI—Uni-Italia”, CRI, 19th Apr. 2011; cf. “Aula Radiofonica Confucio CMG(CRI) - Uni-Italia”, Uni-Italia). On the Foundation, see p. 57.
55On ICFA, see Poggetti, op. cit., pp. 14 sq. Following Poggetti’s work, a longer profile appeared in Toshi Yoshihara & Jack Bianchi, “Uncovering China’s influence in Europe: how friendship groups coopt European elites”, CSBA, 2020, pp. 15 sqq.
56“2019 ”, , 16th Dec. 2019; Corrado Clini, “Riparte l’associazione Italia-Cina, il calcio d’inizio di Corrado Clini”, Lettera43, 17th Dec. 2019. On Clini’s China ties, see “Biografia”, Official Website del Prof. Corrado Clini; “China Daily premia il lavoro di Corrado Clini”, Affaritaliani, 20th June 2017; Fiorenza Sarzanini, “I finanzieri: l’ex ministro riceveva tangenti da uffici
«fantasma» a Pechino”, Corriere.it, 8th Oct. 2014.
57Giovanni Ciolina, “Mascherine importate dalla Cina, sequestrato 1,2 milioni di euro alla Pivetti”, La Stampa (9th Sept. 2020); Manuele Bonaccorsi, “Questione di zeri”, Report (Rai 3), 31st May 2021; Lorenzo
ued to refer to an entity recently collaborating with its subnational interactions as a local “friendship association”, suggesting it is now seen as a key Italian counterpart.58 This new CPAFFC partner, the Italy China Link Association, is discussed in section 3 of this study.
Like the ILD, the CPAFFC maintains a network of fronts to support its cooption activ-
” ) has achieved particular success in Italy. The BRLC is an or- ganization jointly launched in 2017 by the Hangzhou government and the CPAFFC, whose declared goal is to boost cooperation among local governments along the Silk Road.59 The BRLC’s secretary-general, Zhou Shu , concurrently leads the Hang- zhou’s Foreign Affairs Office and previously headed Taizhou and Hangzhou’s propa- ganda departments.60 Her background in the propaganda system, coupled with the strong role of the CPAFFC, makes the BRLC a project more orientated towards the promotion of the CCP’s narratives abroad than to the economic cooperation between local governments.
1.2 The economic system: Trade promotion as a by-word for polit- ical influence
Reflecting the CCP’s post-Cultural Revolution incorporation of capitalism into Lenin- ism (“reform and opening”), external influence operations exploit foreign perceptions of PRC economic expansion to enlist business-focused voices into propaganda nar- ratives. In some locales, ‘economic diplomacy’ has emerged as a meme summarising policies that advocate appeasement of totalitarian expansionism as a fair price to pay for trade and investment opportunities. Those very locales’ paltry record in economic relations with China points to the purpose of the meme: engineering a perception of economic benefit costs the CCP less than the concessions a balanced trade relation- ship would entail. The meme has achieved particular success in Italy’s mainstream public discourse over the past years, notwithstanding the growing trade deficit and lack of visible economic benefits from the 2019 agreement on BRI.61
The CCP finance and economics system, led by the Central Financial and Economic Affairs Commission ( ), oversees agencies including the ministries of commerce and finance. Like other components of the party-state apparatus, the economic system maintains fronts through which the CCP can target foreign interest
d’Albergo, “Roma, la Corte dei conti all’ex ministro Corrado Clini: ”Restituisca 64mila euro””, La Repubblica (22nd Apr. 2017); Francesco Salvatore, “Tangenti, ex ministro Clini condannato a 6 anni per una mazzetta da un milione di euro”, La Repubblica (26th Mar. 2021).
58The CPAFFC and state media have at times used the Chinese term for friendship association (
) to translate the names of foreign CPAFFC counterparts whose original-language names did not use an equivalent. Such has been the case with one of its Czech partners (Lomová, Lulu & Hála, op. cit.). The name of Zucchetti’s association, which contains no ‘friendship’, was frequently translated as if it did (see, e.g., “ ”, , 15th June 1979; “ ”, , 17th Jan. 1986.
State media even used the name in 1961, before the association’s establishment, presumably referring to
”, , 14th June 1961; cf. Yang Lin [ ], “L’influenza della delegazione culturale italiana in Cina del 1955 nelle relazioni sino-italiane”, Monti ed Acque: uno sguardo sulla Cina [20th Sept. 2019]).
59
60“城地组织亚太区 “一带一路” 地方合作委员会组织架构”, BRLC, 17th Dec. 2019; “杭州市外办主任
“Osservatorio Economico, Scheda di Sintesi: Cina”, Ministero degli Affari esteri e della Cooperazione internazionale.
groups while diluting the political nature of the exchanges. Trade promotion activities offer an ideal platform to cultivate business interests whose support for CCP-friendly policies can be particularly effective. Such trade-themed exchanges, fully managed by the PRC side, can also be welcomed by foreign governments, especially at the local level: they offer officials a shortcut to an image as facilitators of economic opportunity without the expertise and effort a national-interest based business promotion strategy would require. In extreme cases, the vocabulary of business opportunity has served to publicise policies of subordination to the CCP that simply gave target-country so- cieties outside a circle of PRC lobbyists no economic benefit: “economic diplomacy” became a euphemism for political influence.62
1.2.1 CCPIT and “China chambers of commerce”
The China Council for the Promotion of International Trade (CCPIT,
), linked, if not formally subordinate, to the Ministry of Commerce, is a trade-themed “people’s diplomacy” organ modelled on Soviet operations target- ing Western business. Today, CCPIT is especially active in the cultivation of foreign businesses, subnational politics and the legal profession.63 CCPIT-controlled agencies include the China Chamber of International Commerce (CCOIC, ), whose role abroad a State Council circular once described as analogous to that of the central united front organ devoted to the cooption of business representatives in the PRC.64 Typically, CCPIT’s main partners abroad are business associations and law firms. Among its partners in the business sector, a network of similarly structured associations stands out: often named ‘China chamber of commerce’, they gather to- gether local businesses with interest in China and representatives of large PRC state and private companies, participate in CCPIT activities and initiatives, and often over- lap with other networks linked to CCP influence agencies. CCPIT further contributes to the CCP’s drive to coopt international organisations through front entities presen- ted as independent, such as one the PRC once tried to pass off as an NGO at the UN.65 In Europe, the activity of CCPIT and its partners is discussed in recent studies on influ- ence activities in Switzerland, Belgium, Poland and the European Parliament.66
CCPIT’s presence in Italy is centred on its representative office in Milan, whose lead- ing cadre interact with Italian officials and business representatives, often at the local level. Nationally, the agency has gained official recognition by appearing as an apolit- ical equivalent of Italian counterparts. The Italian Trade Agency (ICE) signed an agree- ment with CCPIT in 1999, aiming at “closer collaboration in promotional activities and joint programmes on fairs and exhibitions”.67 The latest draft triennial plan for strengthening cooperation 2021-2023 between the PRC and Italy confirmed this on- going cooperation, asserting both parties would “continue to support” the CCPIT representative office’s trade and investment promotion activities, again diluting the agency’s political influence agenda by presenting it as analogous to ICE.68 In 2005,
62Hála, op. cit.
63On CCPIT’s Soviet roots and current roles, see Lulu, “Repurposing democracy”, pp. 24 sqq.
64“ ”, 1990 72 ,
4th Nov. 1990; cf. Gerry Groot, “Understanding the Role of Chambers of Commerce and Industry Associ- ations in United Front Work”, China Brief 11 (19th June 2018).
65Andréa Worden, “The CCP at the UN: Redefining development and rights”, Sinopsis, 17th Mar. 2019; cf. Rolland, op. cit., pp. 21 sq.
66Weber, op. cit., p. 25 n. 129, 54 sqq.; Lulu, op. cit., p. 26; and forthcoming Sinopsis studies.
67Giampiero Di Santo, “Fassino chiede tutela alla Cina”, ItaliaOggi 055 (6th Mar. 1999).
68Carrer & Harth, op. cit.
UnionCamere, the public entity that serves as an umbrella body representing cham- bers of commerce, signed a cooperation agreement with CCPIT.69
CCPIT has a key partner in the Italy-China Chamber of Commerce (Camera di Com- mercio Italo-Cinese, CCIC),70 a partnership witnessed by a CCPIT representative’s honorary membership of the CCIC board.71 The CCIC is one of the high-level ex- change bodies established in the 1970s, with Italy’s diplomatic recognition of the PRC.72 Today, CCIC draws its leadership from the Italian manufacturing, service and legal sectors, as well as Italian representatives of major PRC companies such as Alibaba and ZTE.73 It maintains partnerships with Italian business associations: the CCPIT- partnered public body UnionCamere and the Italian Chamber of Commerce in China
(Camera di Commercio Italiana in Cina, 74 ), officially recognised by
both states and also a CCPIT interlocutor. CCIC’s partnership with CCPIT is further
reflected at the transnational level: CCIC’s secretary-general is a vice chair of the EU- China Business Association (EUCBA, ), a Belgium-based partner in turn linked to similar China chambers elsewhere.
A case study in section 3 illustrates CCPIT’s interactions with local governments in Italy, mediated by an intermediary also partnered with the CPAFFC.
1.3 The propaganda system: Implanting the truth in everyone’s head
Propaganda, understood as mass communication serving party goals, is among the central aspects of Leninist party work expanded as part of the post-Mao CCP’s absorp- tion of new ideas and technologies. Naïve views of propaganda as limited to the party’s overt praise of itself ignore its most important component in adverse discourse do- mains — such as most abroad — where party mouthpieces lack credibility and coercive censorship tools have limited use. Beyond the fringe audience of the overt party cult, propaganda tools target the full discourse landscape to marginalise critical views and define an innocuous “neutrality” as media background noise that does not challenge party policy. Ensuring that “[the party’s] truth penetrates into everyone’s head”76 is as essential as ensuring that an uninterested majority rejects scrutiny challenging the
69L Italia nell’economia internazionale: Rapporto ICE 2006-2007, ICE, p. 510.
70The remainder of this paragraph incorporates unpublished research by Jan Vlček.
71
72“意大利”, EUCBA; “周恩来、王国权会见意大利前外贸部长科隆博”, 人民日报, 22nd Nov. 1971.
74
; “CCPIT Beijing”, 中国意大利商会; “Notice on the Cooperation between Italian Enterprises and Hebei
75“Representatives”, EUCBA; “Consiglio”. CCIC is also an EUCBA “platinum partner” (“Partners”, EU- CBA). The partnership between CCPIT and EUCBA has included an agreement to “hold annual working meetings” and exchange visits, as well as cooperating to organise a high-level event (“CCPIT and EU- CBA sign cooperation agreement”, EUCBA Bulletin 2 [2016], p. 14; “
”, CCPIT, 28th Nov. 2016; “Participants”, EU-China Business Summit; “10th EU-China Busi- ness Summit held in Brussels in June”, EUCBA Bulletin 1 [2015], p. 10). Examples of the overlap between CCPIT and EUCBA’s networks are the Deutsch-Chinesische Wirtschaftsvereinigung (DCW, CCPIT’s self- described “official German partner”) and the Austrian Chinese Business Association (ACBA) (“EUCBA”, DCW; “CCPIT”, DCW; Austria; “Präsident der ACBA besuchte CCPIT”, ACBA, 5th Dec. 2016; “ACBA und CCPIT unterzeichnen Kooperationsabkommen”, ACBA, 26th Sept. 2018; cf. Geoff Wade, “Austria: Online economic & trade cooperation forum…”, Twitter, 29th May 2021).
76В.И. Ленин, “Доклад Центрального Комитета на IX Съезде РКП(б)”, Полное собрание сочинений, 5th ed., vol. 40, Государственное издательство политической литературы, 1974, p. 252.
party as a no less “polarised” extreme than the most florid panegyrics of the party’s leaders.77
External propaganda (‘exoprop’, ) is a major component of propaganda work, with dedicated agencies including foreign-language media outlets, dedicated organs under propaganda units — such as the ministries of education, and culture and tourism — and foreign outposts such as Confucius Institutes.78
Italy has seen the propaganda system progress towards penetrating a foreign media space: perhaps most symbolically, in 2019 a mainstream news channel led by an out- spoken critic of the CCP’s management of the Covid pandemic aired a propaganda documentary produced as part of Xi Jinping’s personality cult. The fact that the CCP- critical media executive was personally, publicly thanked by a deputy head of the Central Propaganda Department highlights the importance the party’s propaganda apparatus attaches to the legitimacy credibly “neutral” platforms can confer.
1.3.1 The Propaganda Department and its fronts
The increased centrality of propaganda is reflected in the size and power of the party’s propaganda apparatus, forming a bureaucratic system led at the central level by the Propaganda and Thought Work Leading Small Group, currently chaired by Politburo
ganda Department (中央宣传部) under the Central Committee.
The State Council Information Office (SCIO, ), ostensibly a gov- ernment organ, is in fact simply a nameplate the Propaganda Department uses for some of its activities. For much of its history, SCIO was an external name used by the Office of External Propaganda (OEP, ) under the CCP Central Committee.79 OEP was absorbed into the Central Propaganda Department in 2014.80 Even after the abolition of the central OEP, in some cases analogous organs have con- tinued to exist at the subnational level, at least in name.81 Sichuan Province offers an example: as late as 2021, the province party committee still maintained an Office of External Propaganda, with the Sichuan People’s Government Information Office (SCIO’s provincial analogue) as its state nameplate, headed by a deputy head of the province’s propaganda department.82
77On “neutrality” and a perception of “polarisation” as CCP propaganda desiderata in a contemporary European context, see Lulu, op. cit., pp. 6 sq., 41.
78On CCP propaganda, its history and institutions, see, e.g., David Shambaugh, “China’s Propaganda System: Institutions, Processes and Efficacy”, The China Journal 57 (2007); Anne-Marie Brady, Marketing Dictatorship: Propaganda and Thought Work in Contemporary China, Rowman & Littlefield, 2007; James Farley & Matthew D. Johnson, eds., Propaganda and Security from Mao Zedong to Xi Jinping: Struggling to Defend China’s Socialist System, Routledge, 2020. For a comprehensive treatment of CCP external pro- paganda, see Mareike Ohlberg, “Creating a favorable international public opinion environment: External propaganda (duiwai xuanchuan) as a global concept with Chinese characteristics”, PhD thesis, University of Heidelberg, 6th Mar. 2013. On the Confucius Insitutes historical and current relationship with the CCP pro- paganda system, see Jichang Lulu & Filip Jirouš, “The CCP International Liaison Department’s operations in the Czech Republic”, Sinopsis, forthcoming.
79Ohlberg, op. cit., pp. 305 sqq. et passim.
80Jichang Lulu, Filip Jirouš & Rachel Lee, “Xi’s centralisation of external propaganda: SCIO and the Central Propaganda Department”, Sinopsis, 25th Jan. 2021.
81
82Ibid., p. 7 n. 26; “解读省委十一届七次全会精神新闻发布会”, 四川省人民政府, 13th July 2020; “四
Operations conducted under the SCIO flag include the propaganda system’s contribu- tion to the global installation of the party’s concept of “human rights”, euphemistic- ally understood as the rights of rulers.83 CCP-controlled agencies, often misleadingly presented as NGOs to foreign audiences, use the acquiescence of foreign individu- als and institutions as endorsements of the CCP’s totalitarian rule, specifically its re- pressive policies in Tibet and Xinjiang.84 The China Foundation for Human Rights Development (CFHRD, ) is one of the Central Propaganda De- partment’s human rights-themed front organisations.85 CFHRD is supervised by the Central Propaganda Department.86 Its secretary-general’s previous post was at the
87
Mengfu , is a prominent united front figure and a dual member of the CCP and one of its ancillary parties, of which his grandfather was the first chair.88 The found- ation’s propaganda activities include organising human rights events and sending delegations abroad for exchanges that often go unnoticed by local media abroad. For- eign tours have taken CFHRD representatives to, e.g., the US, Egypt, the UK, Hungary, Austria, Greece, the Czech Republic and Italy.89 CFHRD recently obtained special con- sultative status at the United Nations Economic and Social Council and began making interventions at the Human Rights Council as a “civil society” organisation.90
Interactions between CCP propaganda agencies, including the Sichuan Office of Ex- ternal Propaganda and CFHRD, and Italian politicians and journalists are noted in section 2.2.2.
83This paragraph incorporates unpublished research by Roman Leuchter and Filip Jirouš.
84Andréa Worden, “The CCP at the UN: Redefining development and rights”, Sinopsis, 17th Mar. 2019; eadem, “The Human Rights Council Advisory Committee: A new tool in China’s anti-human rights
85CFHRD’s activities overlap with those of the China Society for Human Rights Studies (CSHRS, 中
OEP’s 7th Bureau (Ohlberg, op. cit., p. 460; Lulu, Jirouš & Lee, op. cit.; Worden, op. cit.; Titus C. Chen, “A flamboyant mandarin in a declining liberal order: China’s revisionist agenda in global human rights institutions”, SSRN, 12th June 2019; Geoffrey Roberts, “One Chinese GONGO’s War against Global Human R简ig介hts”, China Change, 1st May 2020). CSHRS has received funding through CFHRD (“
17th Sept. 2014; “黄孟复在“2018•北京人权论坛” 开幕式上的致辞”, 国务院新闻办公室, 18th Sept. 2018).
87
传部展副基部金长会培副训理班事举长办兼”秘, 全书国长宣传门干立部军学”, 院中,国26人th权A发pr.展20基19金; “会学;院cf简. “介第”六, 全期国市宣（传地干、部州学、院盟,）20党th委M宣ay
88“职20业19学年院度工作报告”, 中国人权发展基金会, p. 9; “学院举办 “文华图书室” 开幕暨揭幕仪”, 北京
at the National Construction Association, see “黄炎培同志简历”, 中国民主建国会, 14th Aug. 2008; Groot,
89
中国政府网
, 29th Sept. 2017; 袁亮, “中国人权发展基金会代表团访问匈牙利”, 新华, via
“2018 年”, 中,国18人th权Ju研ly究20会19; 于涛, “中国人权王发义展, “基中金国会人代权表发团展访基金问会奥代地表利团”, 人访民问日捷报克, 21st J中ul国y 2人01权9;
, 12th Feb. 2018;
90 , 27th Sept. 2017.
”, via
“Report of the Committee on Non-Governmental Organizations on its 2020 regular session”, UN Eco- nomic and Social Council, E/2020/32 (Part I), 7th Feb. 2020; “Human Rights Council Holds Separate Gen- eral Debates on Human Rights Bodies and Mechanisms and on the Universal Periodic Review”, UN Human Rights, 18th Mar. 2021.
1.3.2 Media organs and “borrowed boats”
A key propaganda organ’s successful insertion of CCP narratives into mainstream Italian media, in collaboration with non-CCP aligned local voices, illustrates how a poor understanding of the CCP propaganda system among its foreign interlocutors allows it to acquire the legitimacy and credibility it needs to shape “middle-ground” perceptions of China.
China Media Group (CMG, ), led by a deputy head of the Pro- paganda Department, is a propaganda unit set up in 2018 to absorb three previously separate domestic and foreign broadcasters.91 CMG’s mission is to “propagate the party’s theory and line, principles and policies, tell China’s story well, and promote the development of the party and state’s cause”.92
CMG’s external propaganda units’ furtherance of this mission includes propagating CCP-aligned statements by prestigious figures, so as to build a perception of an inter- national endorsement of the regime. The International Olympic Commitee’s presid- ent’s recent “exclusive” comments to CMG, in which he “spoke highly of Xi”, provide an example, meant to counter opposition to Beijing hosting the games with praise of “Chinese dynamism, determination and efficiency”.93
CMG’s pursuit of its mission has achieved notable success in Italy. In 2019, CMG signed agreements with three major Italian mainstream media groups: the public radio and television broadcaster RAI, its private competitor Mediaset, and Class Editori, a private media conglomerate that publishes newspapers and magazines and owns tele- vision stations.94 During Xi Jinping’s 2019 visit to Italy, these three groups launched a “Week of Chinese TV”, broadcasting curated CMG content, including the Italian- language version of The Literary Citations of Xi Jinping ( “ ” ——
), produced by CMG and the Central Propaganda Department.95
One of the broadcasters now subsumed under CMG is China Radio International (CRI), ).96 CRI has had mixed success in its attempts to build a
91“中共中央印发《深化党和国家机构改革方案》”, 新华, via gov.cn, 21st Mar. 2018; “慎海雄：惟有
”, , 26th Dec. 2019. The mission statement is composed of common tropes in contemporary CCP propaganda language. The first two phrases occur,
21st Aug. 2013).
”, 人民日报, via 中国共产党新闻网,
93“Beijing 2022 one year to go: IOC chief hails prospects for successful Winter Olympics”, CGTN, 4th Feb. 2021. See Andréa Worden, “Xi’s China dream versus the Olympic dream: Beijing 2022 and the CCP’s ‘mu- tually beneficial’ relationship with the IOC president”, Sinopsis, 7th July 2021.
94
CCTV.com, Via news.qqq, 26th June 2019; ““ ” ”, CMG, via , 23rd Mar. 2019; “Firmato MoU con China Media Group”, RAI, 22nd Mar. 2019; Harth, “Così la macchina di propaganda cinese penetra nei media italiani”; Michelin, op. cit.
95““ ” ”; “In corso in Italia la Settimana della TV Cinese”, CRI, 23rd Mar. 2019;
2019; “Italia: lanciata la versione in lingua italiana di “Citazioni letterarie di Xi Jinping””, RadioWe, 21st Mar. 2周01大9 (正on RadioWe, see , “ ”, (2nd Nov. 2018); 2情01怀9). On the Citations propaganda documentary, see “人民网评：从 “平 ‘语’ 近人” 中读懂总书记深沉
96CRI traces its origins to the CCP’s first foreign-language broadcasts from its base in Yan’an, a weekly programme in Japanese read by Hara Kiyoko (also known as Hara Kiyoshi (Yuan Qingzhi)
Figure 2: Still from TGCOM24’s airing of the Italian version of a documentary coproduced by the Central Propaganda Department. Source: CRI.
global network of ostensibly independent, foreign-language affiliates, using a tactic known as “borrowing a boat to go out to sea” ( ), with some collapsing after the exposure of their state links.97
Thanks to its recent cooperation with major media organisations, CRI has ‘borrowed’ its way into the Italian mainstream, after decades of activity largely limited to its own Italian-language output. The Italian service of what was then known as Radio Pek- ing began in 1960, cooperating with the PCI until the ideological split between the parties.98 The early months of the Covid-19 pandemic saw a breakthrough in CRI’s ability to shape Italian perceptions of China, with RAI and Mediaset TV programmes featuring frequent reports on the situation in China by CRI journalists.99 The collabor- ation with Mediaset, publicly praised by the Propaganda Department cadre respons- ible for CMG, crucially legitimised CCP narratives in a “middle-ground” position: the Mediaset channel’s director, personally thanked by the propaganda cadre, has been an
志中)国. S国ee际水广谷播尚电子台, 「》反知日识」竞以赛前系: 列中之国一対”日, C工RI作, 2者6thたMちayの2回00想6; ,梅文村藝卓春, 秋“抗, 2日00・6,内pp戦. 3期6,中41国sq共q.;産“党《の我ラ与 ”, PhD thesis, , 2010, p. 192; Çağdaş Üngör, “Reaching the distant comrade: Chinese
communist propaganda abroad (1949-1976)”, PhD thesis, Binghamton University, 2009, p. 44.
97Jichang Lulu, “China’s state media and the outsourcing of soft power”, University of Nottingham China Policy Institute blog, 15th July 2015; Koh Gui Qing & John Shiffman, “Beijing’s covert radio network airs China-friendly news across Washington, and the world”, Reuters, 2nd Nov. 2015; “Police suspect tax fraud by China-linked Tampere media firm”, YLE, 28th Oct. 2019; Alex Joske et al., “The influence environment: A survey of Chinese-language media in Australia”, ASPI Policy Brief 42 (2020), pp. 55 sqq.
98“ ”, CRI; Folco Buonamici, “Radio e televisione in Cina”, Cina 7 (1963); Pini, op. cit.,
pp. 94 sqq., 116. For recent comments and activities of Gabriella Bonino, who worked for CRI’s Italian
, via , 22nd Mar. 2019; “ ”, , 13th Apr. 2021; “Gabriella Bonino: la Via della Seta e la Cina odierna”, Ticino Today, 10th Mar. 2016.
99
Pascale Profile”, LinkedIn, 14th May 2020. Liu Pai 刘湃, a CRI/CMG journalist fluent in Italian, began a Tgcom24: “La Cina è fuori dal tunnel””, TGCOM 24, 13th Mar. 2020).
outspoken critic of CCP policies, in particular on the pandemic.100 Similarly, the web- site of Il Giornale, a national newspaper known for its critical stance towards the CCP, hosts contributions by Cinitalia, a bilingual publication curated by CRI.101
CMG’s role in efforts to insert CCP propaganda in mainstream Italian media is dis- cussed in a case study below (p. 40).
1.4 Intelligence agencies and fronts
Foreign affairs, propaganda, trade and united front organs conduct influence opera- tions with shallow or no cover. Organs in these systems can themselves provide cover for the influence work of intelligence agencies. The extent to which the cooption activ- ities of agencies outside security and military structures in fact mediate intelligence operations requires further study. Enough examples of CCP intelligence use of united front groups, propaganda organs such as Confucius Institutes, and other influence agencies are known to indicate that serving as intelligence cover is among their core functions.102
The CCP’s main intelligence agencies maintain their own front organisations for co- option activities. These include civilian security organs, part of the CCP’s political and legal system, as well as PLA units. The Ministry of State Security (MSS,
), the main civilian intelligence organ, uses units such as the China International Cultural Exchange Center (CICEC, ) and the China Institutes
teract with foreign targets, notably including European international relations think tanks.103 The Ministry of Public Security (MPS, ), primarily responsible for domestic law enforcement — notably ‘political security protection’ — has retained in- telligence roles including activities abroad even after the establishment of the MSS. MPS external exchange fronts include the China Association for Friendship (CAFF,
), known to have cultivated Italian contacts.104 Among military in-
telligence agencies, the PLA Political Work Department’s Liaison Bureau (PWD/LB,
) developed high-profile foreigner cooption through the use of a cluster of interlinked fronts, with the non-profit arm of the private energy company CEFC involved in the successful cultivation of officials and other public figures at the United Nations and in several states.105
100“Coronavirus, Mediaset ringrazia CMG per la lettera di solidarietà”, CRI, 3rd Mar. 2020; “Il presidente del China Media Group a Mediaset e Tgcom24: ”Grazie per il vostro lavoro e per il supporto””, TGCOM24,
23rd Jan. 2020; “ ”, Radio Italia
Cina, 5th Feb. 2020; “Covid, Liguori: ”Fuga del virus da un laboratorio in Cina? Lo dissi per primo e nessuno diede importanza””, TGCOM 24, 31st Mar. 2021.
101“Capire la Cina: l’interpretazione delle citazioni letterarie di Xi Jinping”, Cinitalia (1st Mar. 2021), via Il Giornale.
102Joske, op. cit., pp. 14 sqq.; “The PLA and CCP influence abroad: Business, intelligence, crime and
interference enmeshed”, Sinopsis, interview with Alex Joske, 6th Dec. 2019.
103On CICEC, see Stokes & Hsiao, op. cit., p. 79 n. 259; Joske, op. cit., p. 15. On CICIR, “Profile of MSS- Affiliated PRC Foreign Policy Think Tank CICIR”, Open Source Center, 25th Aug. 2011; Peter Mattis & Matthew Brazil, Chinese Communist Espionage: An Intelligence Primer, Naval Institute Press, 2019, ch. 1. On the MSS’s involvement in multiagency think-tank cooption operations, Lulu & Jirouš, op. cit.
104Geoff Wade & Jichang Lulu, “The China Association for Friendship ( ) and its links
with the Ministry of Public Security”, forthcoming.
105Stokes & Hsiao, op. cit., pp. 26 sqq.; Sinopsis & Lulu, op. cit.; Hála, op. cit.; Eugenio Cau, “Perché quando la Cina parla di business in realtà ha mire molto politiche”, Il Foglio (14th Mar. 2019).
The remainder of this section introduces two culture-themed organisations involved in exchanges with Italy to illustrate the connections between CCP intelligence and front groups outside their administrative aegis. While formally affiliated with the CCP propaganda system, the organisations enjoy leadership links to civilian and military intelligence agencies.
1.4.1 Two GONGOs and their intelligence links
The Chinese Culture Promotion Society (CCPS, ), currently su- pervised by the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, illustrates the personnel overlap between systems often observed in front organisations.106 These personal links may facilitate communication in activities involving other agencies and allow fronts to serve as vehicles for the work of different organs, offering external affiliations to their
anying 叶剑英 and brother of Ye Xuanning 叶选1宁07, a leading figure in the PLA’s
political warfare platforms in the 1980s and 1990s. Xu Jialu 许嘉璐, a prominent
academic who has held appointments in some of those platforms and others linked to united front, propaganda and both military and civilian intelligence, remains CCPS’s honorary chair.108 CCPS’s legal representative Wang Shi , is also a deputy presid- ent of CNIE, an ILD front.109 CCPS has an affiliated organisation in Switzerland, led by the president of a tourism federation in turn linked to local united front associations and international CCP-led tourism alliances.110
CCPS’s exchanges with Italian legislators are discussed on p. 38.
CCPS’s links to civilian intelligence include its connections to the Association for Yan Huang Culture of China (AYHCC, ), also supervised by the Ministry of Culture and Tourism.111 AYHCC’s executive deputy chair is Gao Yichen
106The CCP’s subordination of culture and tourism to propaganda most visibly manifests itself in the fact that the ministry is led by a deputy head of the Propaganda Deparment. CCPS oversees a network of subnational-level societies, some openly acknowledging the guiding role of the local propaganda depart- ment (Weber, op. cit., p. 38 n. 219). CCPS’s links beyond the propaganda system, including to the PLA and possibly the MSS, are suggested in Stokes, op. cit.
107
25 ”, , 5th Aug. 2017; cf. Stokes & Hsiao, op. cit., p. 70 n. 194. Ye Xuanping was at the highest point of his political power as Guangdong governor before the time of the
2019; cf. “ ”, , 23rd Sept. 2019). On Ye Xuanning, one of the first leaders of the predecessor of today’s PLA PWD/LB, see Stokes & Hsiao, op. cit., pp. 11 sq. et passim. CCPS’s original name referred to the culture of the ‘Chinese nation’ (Zhonghua minzu), a construct meant to comprise all
光明日报
29 号）”, 民政部, 17th Jan. 2004; 宫苏艺, “中华文化促进会召开会员代表大会”,
, 7th May 2009; pace Stokes & Hsiao, op. cit., p. 61 n. 130). The new name was in use by the time
108“ ”, CCPS, 19th Sept. 2019; cf. Stokes & Hsiao, op. cit., pp. 23, 25 sq.; “ ”, . Xu’s affiliations have notably included the non-profit arm of CEFC, an energy company linked to military intelligence and formerly active in influence operations in multiple countries and at the UN (Sinopsis & Lulu, op. cit.; Hála, op. cit.; Cau, op. cit.).
109“ ”, CCPS, 21st Sept. 2019; “ ”, ,
28th Jan. 2021.
110
111“中华炎黄文化研究会章程”, 炎黄网. CCPS’s honorary chair, Xu Jialu, chairs AYHCC (罗欣, “第八华炎黄文化研究会关于)会. C员C单PS位an审d 核AY情HC况C公sh告a（re local affiliates and have jointly overseen activities (“中
高以忱, a former vice minister of state security.112 Both Gao and another deputy chair,
erodox religious groups and recently absorbed by the MPS.113 AYHCC has an affiliate in Florence ( , Associazione di Ricerca Culturale Italo- Cinese Yan Huang), which described in state media as “the first Yan Huang culture research association abroad”.114 The Florence entity has organised cultural activities “hoping to actively connect with the Chinese government’s ‘Chinese culture going- out’ strategy” (referring CCP culture-themed propaganda) and participated in mask donations during the COVID crisis.115
The 2016 inauguration of AYHCC’s Florence affiliate was attended by an AYHCC leader and local personages including Carlo Capria, a former government official more recently associated with an organisation mediating local-level interactions with CCP influence agencies, discussed in section 3.1.116
1.5 The united front system
In the Leninist tradition, “united front” tactics are policies that seek to coopt extra- party forces into broad temporary alliances led by the communist vanguard, as tools for the latter’s takeover, consolidation and permanent monopoly of state power. A united front conceptually differs from coalitions and other power-sharing arrange- ments in democratic politics in the impermeable distinction between the communist party at its core, able to lead a diverse alliance without compromising its internal ideo- logical purity, and the coopted allies in its orbit, whose role must remain ancillary. Through the Comintern, the Soviets adapted versions of the united front concept to Moscow’s evolving goals and national conditions. The CCP’s own establishment and induction into cooperation with the KMT was itself an aspect of the Comintern’s united front policy. In Stalin’s post-war implementation of the concept in the Soviet- led communist bloc in Eastern Europe and Asia, non-communist forces embedded into fronts served as tools for the transition into one-party regimes, surviving afterwards in vestigial forms. The CCP, whose leadership since Mao has credited united front with being one of the “magic weapons” that allowed the party to obtain and maintain
2论02坛0;圆“中满华闭文幕化”,（央西广华网）, 1论4t坛h A在p西r. 2华02县1)举.
行”, Root in Henan, 23rd Nov. 2018; cf. 王勇生, “黄帝文化国际
112罗欣, op. cit.; “胡晓刚赴京拜会中华炎黄文化研究会”, 高平市人民政府, 10th Apr. 2021.
, 23rd Jan. 2014. Gu is possibly related to a senior cadre with the MPS Political Secur- ity Protection Bureau (Filip Jirouš & Jichang Lulu, “The Ministry of Public Security and Chekist political protection”, forthcoming).
114
115“ ”, , via , 3rd Jan. 2017; “Mille mascherine al Santa Maria Annunziata dall’Associazione generale dei cinesi a Firenze”, News dalle Pub- bliche Amministrazioni della Città Metropolitana di Firenze, 7th Apr. 2020. In its original sense, ‘going out’ ( ) is a Hu-era term used in party-state initiatives supporting the international expansion of PRC businesses. On ‘Chinese culture going-out’ as a descriptor for the use of culture for external pro- paganda purposes, cf. Xi’s remarks at a recent Politburo study session, calling for “straightening out the system of internal and external propaganda, creating a group of internationally influential meddia, act- ively promoting Chinese culture going-out, effectively developing international public-opinion guidance a播nd工p作ub展lic-示op真in实ion立s体tru全gg面le的” (“中国”, 新华, 1st June 2021).
“COMUNICATO STAMPA: Cerimonia Inaugurale dell’Associazione di Ricerca Culturale Italo-Cinese Yan- Huang…”, Dong & Partners Law Firm/ , via Facebook, 18th June 2016.
state power, renewed the concept to manage the extra-party constituencies that built China’s economy under “reform and opening”, the Deng Xiaoping era’s incorporation of capitalism into Leninism.
1.5.1 The UFWD
Today’s united front system, further consolidated and institutionalised under Xi, com- prises an array of agencies, led from the party centre by a leading small group chaired by a Politburo Standing Committee member and coordinated by the United Front Work Department ( , UFWD) under the Central Committee.117 Through these agencies and their partner entities abroad, the CCP targets for co- option leading members of sectors whose cooperation is required for the stability and expansion of party power: business, science and technology, ethnic minorities, Overseas Chinese. Agencies directly controlled by the UFWD include the State Eth- nic Affairs Commission (SEAC, ), previously, as its name still reflects, a government organ.118 The UFWD also controls multiple formally non-state
), which, especially abroad, allow the CCP to present some of its cooption and propaganda activities as apolitical and independently initiated.119 SCLF has an Italian affiliate, initiated in 2004 and officially established in 2008.120 The SCLF has used its purported non-state status for image operations, such as a mask donation to Rome’s city council.121 A vice president of the Italian chapter was a Democratic Party candid- ate in the October 2021 elections for the Rome city council.122
Italian contacts with the SEAC are mentioned on p. 33 below. The case study in section 3 notes a SCLF appointment bestowed on an Italian political consultant.
1.5.2 The CPPCC
The Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC,
), an assembly of party-selected leading members of various consituencies, is the top-ranked united front agency and plays a key role as a nexus between the CCP centre and non-party personages aligned with party policy in China and abroad.123 Its chair, currently Wang Yang , is the Politburo Standing Committee member who leads the united front system. The national CPPCC and its local-level commit- tees provide a public forum for the party’s interactions with leaders of its favoured diaspora organisations, often rewarded with invitations to attend conference meet-
117Alex Joske, “The Central United Front Work Leading Small Group: Institutionalising united front work”, Sinopsis, 23rd July 2019; idem, “Reorganizing the United Front Work Department: New Structures for a New Era of Diaspora and Religious Affairs Work”, China Brief 19.9 (9th May 2019); idem, “The party speaks for you”.
118Idem, “Reorganizing…”
119Ibid., p. 37.
120 , “ ”, , 7th June 2021.
121““No Distinction Amid Virus”: Italian Soong Ching Ling Foundation Donates 25,000 Medical Masks to City Council of Rome”, People’s Government of Yangpu District, 1st July 2020.
122“La comunità cinese con Gualtieri, Lin: “Integrazione volano per rilancio economia locale””, Nova
News, 28th Sept. 2021.
123On the CPPCC’s history, see Groot, op. cit., 161 sqq.et passim. On its current composition and its role in foreign influence activities, Peter Mattis, “The Center of Chinese Influence: the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference”, Insidious Power: How China Undermines Global Democracy, ed. by Hsu Szu-Chien & J. Michael Cole, Eastbridge, 2020.
ings and other appointments.124 Leaders of Italian diaspora organisations have been among such “specially invited” members of the CPPCC and its province and city-level counterparts.125
Section 2 shows how the CPPCC has acted as an interlocutor of CCP-friendly par- liament groups. As noted above (p. 8), ‘parliamentary diplomacy’ can serve as cover for influence operations involving foreign legislators and CCP agencies with little in common with parliaments.
1.5.3 “Reunification” shops and coopted diaspora groups
The UFWD-controlled China Council for the Promotion of Peaceful National Re- unification (CCPPNR, ) is led by the CPPCC chair, with the UFWD head as executive vice chair and a UFWD deputy head as secretary-general.126 The CCPPNR controls a network of similarly named local affiliates abroad, which in turn seek, with varying degrees of success, to act as umbrella groups represent- ing CCP-coopted diaspora groups in their geographic constituency.127 The CCPPNR’s English name is itself propagandistic: by “reunification”, it refers to the CCP’s goal of annexing Taiwan, which the PRC never controlled.128
The Italian Council for the Promotion of the Peaceful Reunification of China (
) was set up in 2000 and reestablished in 2011, at a cere- mony attended by PRC diplomats that received congratulatory notes from the UFWD and other party-state organs.129 The Italian council’s events, usually featuring CCP- aligned ideological slogans, are often attended by PRC diplomatic representatives.130 Its current head, the businessman Zheng Xianjie , is a former chair of the Prato
di amicizia dei cinesi di Prato), one of the main diaspora organisations under the “guidance” of PRC diplomatic staff and a participant in CCPPNR-organised activit- ies supporting CCP policies.131 According to Zheng, the Italian organisation “is one
124Ibid.; Joske, “The party speaks for you”, p. 26; Filip Jirouš, “The Chinese United Front in the Czech Republic: Methods, goals and organizational structure”, MA thesis, Charles University, 2020, pp. 66, 81, 85,
125“10 名浙江籍侨领列席全国政协会议 关注海外华裔”, 中国侨网, 12th Mar. 2015; “王增理会长等旅
协会议”联, 青田网, 16th Jan. 2020; “政协第十届温州市委员会第五次会议港澳海外（特邀）委员座谈会”,
127John Dotson, “The United Front Work Department Goes Global: The Worldwide Expansion of the Coun- cil for the Promotion of the Peaceful Reunification of China”, China Brief 19.9 (9th May 2019). On CCPPNR affiliates in Europe, Oceania and North America, see Brady, “Magic Weapons”, pp. 16 sqq.; Joske, op. cit.,
pp. 21 sqq.; John Dotson, “The United Front Work Department in Action Abroad: A Profile of The Council for the Promotion of the Peaceful Reunification of China”, China Brief 18.2 (13th Feb. 2018); Pär Nyrén, “Kin- esiska kommunistpartiets enhetsfront och dess verksamhet i Sverige”, Frivärld, 29th May 2010, pp. 6 sqq.; Jirouš, op. cit., pp. 59 sqq.; Weber, op. cit., pp. 16 sqq.
128Gerry Groot, “The CCP’s Grand United Front abroad”, Sinopsis, 24th Sept. 2019, p. 12.
129
华1任30 会长”, 中国新闻网, 21st Feb. 2011. This paragraph incorporates unpublished research by Filip Jirouš.
新闻网
via 中国和平统一促进会, 18th Feb. 2019; “意大利中国和平统一促进会举行换届庆典”, 中国
131 , via 中国和平统一促进会, 28th July 2017.
市外办, 30th Oct. 2017; “海外统促会代表人士坚定拥护《反分裂国家法》促进祖国统一”, 中国
of the world’s earliest peaceful reunification councils, enjoying broad influence”.132 In his words, the CCP’s “reunification” goal is an “unstoppable historical trend”.133 The Italian council’s previous chair, Liu Guanghua , is a member of the Zhi Gong Party, and a deputy chair of a province-level counterpart of the All-China Federation of Returned Overseas Chinese (ACFROC, ), a key CCP- controlled united front agency.134 Abrogating to represent the Chinese community, the council often acts as a CCP proxy in Italian political life, notably protesting the Dalai Lama’s visits: in 2016, with a public demonstrations in Milan, and the next year at a meeting with a Democratic Party representative in Rome.135 In 2020, during the Covid-19 pandemic, the council led by Zheng was among the organisations particip- ating in the distribution of medical supplies to the Chinese community, an activity organised on behalf of a UFWD-controlled agency in China and the Florence consu- late.136
Section 3.1.2 discusses the interactions between Italian united front groups and con- sultants involved in influence operations at the local level in Italy.
, 1st June 2020; cf. Giulia Lucisano, “Come cambiano i produttori, ma non cambia la produzione. L’imprenditoria cinese nel distretto tessile di Prato”, MA thesis, Università Ca’Foscari Venezia, 2013, pp. 66 sq., 87.
132
133
134“意大利侨领刘光华：从洗盘子到当老板 靠苦心耕耘”, 中国侨网, 23rd Sept. 2020; “党员刘光华
ACFROC, see James Jiann Hua To, “Hand-in-Hand, Heart-to-Heart: Qiaowu and the Overseas Chinese”, PhD thesis, University of Canterbury, 2009, pp. 64 sq. et passim; Joske, op. cit., p. 7 et passim.
135
D访alai Lama – L’ira dei cinesi: «Siamo feriti»”, Corriere.it, 19th Oct. 2016; “旅意华人向执政党抗议达赖窜
via , 22nd Apr. 2020. On the agency, the China Overseas Friendship Association ( ), see Joske, op. cit., p. 44 n. 95 et passim.
2 Making friends and coopting frenemies: Parliament as an arena of influence work
Democratic legislatures, an obvious target of influence activity, challenge the CCP’s Leninist habits: a tight circle of reliable “friends” may lack visibility and weight, while official parliamentary committees, with plural membership and transparency require- ments, are less desirable counterparts for influence operations. Cultivating such a tightly aligned core and surrounding it with further layers of more mainstream, con- structively critical legitimisers is the task of the CCP International Liaison Department (ILD, introduced in section 1.1.1). Platforms through which “friends” promote CCP- favourable policies and views are reinforced by the support of “frenemies” who lend them their respectability, a reinforcement rendered only more credible when it comes from known critics of aspects of party policy. Xi Jinping’s recent restatement of ex- ternal propaganda policy at a Politburo study session this June serves as a reminder of the importance of “friends” in CCP influence: calling for expanding “a circle of friends in international public opinion” by “helping the foreign masses […] understand why the CCP is capable”, “why socialism with Chinese characteristics is good”.137
In this section, two case studies on the recent history of CCP influence in Parliament sketch the ILD and other organs’ efforts to gain a friendly mainstream partner group. From an entity whose most visible role was that of a receiver of Tibet-themed pro- paganda, the ILD switched to a new, more active platform, led by figures with senior parliamentary roles. Crucially, the new group kept a vocally CCP-aligned core while gaining legitimacy through the participation of some sceptics, helping totalitarian propaganda cross the respectability threshold.
2.1 The Parliamentary Italy-China Friendship Association: Telling the Tibet story well
Friendship groups as a tool of CCP influence work in Italy precede the Xi era. The Italy-China Parliamentary Friendship Association (Associazione parlamentare di Amicizia Italia-Cina), sometimes also referred to as the Friends of China Association (Associazione Amici della Cina), already active in the Hu Jintao years, continued to organise trips as of 2019, although by then it appeared to have lost significance.
The Friendship Association’s principal PRC partner appears to be the CCP Interna- tional Liaison Department (ILD), the party’s main foreign affairs organ focused on cultivating foreign politicians and political parties. United front organs have been the Friends’ other key interlocutors, with its delegations often being received by leading CPPCC figures.
Propaganda on the CCP’s policy towards Tibetans and other ethnic minorities seems to have been the key focus of its interactions with the Friends: their delegations have often been taken to Tibetan areas, on occasion offering quotes presented by state media as a useful foreign endorsement of the party’s treatment of Tibetans.
The association’s failure to develop into a consistent relayer of propaganda beyond this single issue might conceivably explain the ILD’s more recent focus on a more effective parliamentary group. The loss of key active members in successive elections may have further weakened the group’s capabilities.
137“习近平在中共中央政治局第三十次集体学习时…”
Figure 3: Maria Rizzotti on CCTV, March 2020. Source: CCTV.
2.1.1 The Friends’ recent leadership
The Friendship Association reshuffies its members with the election of each new legis- lature.138 Since it does not maintain an updated website on its activities and member- ship, such information can only be gleaned by comparing various Italian and Chinese- language sources. Such evidence suggests that Vinicio Peluffo (Democratic Party) was the Association’s president between 2013 and 2018, when he left the Chamber of Deputies.139 Peluffo was succeeded by Maria Rizzotti (Forza Italia), referred to as president since 2018, when Peluffo became its secretary.140 Rizzotti received wide cov- erage by Chinese state media in March 2020 for her praise of the PRC’s handling of the Covid-19 outbreak.141
Rizzotti is absent in reporting on both of the Association’s 2019 delegations, to Beijing and Tibet. These were led instead by Mauro Maria Marino (Italia Viva), at the time was vice chair the Senate’s Budget Committee.142
No mention of the Marino-led trips could be found in Italian-language sources. While the Chinese article does not specify Marino’s role in the Association, his ties to it may go back to 2013, when he was photographed together with Peluffo, Rizzotti and the then PRC ambassador to Italy, Li Ruiyu .143
138“Il mio intervento alla Farnesina alla presentazione della guida sul diritto del lavoro in Italia per in- vestitori cinesi”, viniciopeluffo.it, 24th Jan. 2018.
139“CPC praised by foreign parties over sharing China’s anti-virus experience”, Xinhua, 18th Mar. 2020; “Hong Kong-Cina 2019, a novembre la missione di commercialisti e imprese”, Corriere della Sera, 21st Oct.
140“驻意大利大使李瑞宇会见意议会 “中国之友” 协会代表”, 驻意大利共和国大使馆, 20th Sept. 2018. ILD, via Sina, 17th Mar. 2020; “CPC praised by foreign parties over sharing China’s anti-virus experience”.
142
“ “ ” ”, 30th July 2019; “Scheda di attività di Mauro Maria Marino”, Senato della Repubblica.
143“ “ ” ”, MFA, 13th Mar. 2015. Another notable member of the Association is Marina Berlinghieri (Democratic Party): she took part in the trip to Yunnan in 2016 and attended the meeting with the ILD in 2019 (“Italia-Cina: Amici della Cina, Yunnan accesso a Sud-est asiatico”, Agi, 9th Nov. 2016; “ “ ” ”). Berlinghieri’s contacts with China appear to go beyond her involvement in the Friends’ trips. According to
Figure 4: Mauro Maria Marino (third from right) and an Italian delegation posing with ILD’s Deputy Head Guo Yezhou, July 2019. Source: ILD.
2.1.2 The Friends’ friends: The ILD and the united front system
The Association’s main counterpart appears to be the ILD, which in at least some cases has acted as the organiser of its China visits. Another high-level interlocutor has been the CPPCC, with some of its leaders receiving the Italian delegations during these trips. Contacts with a united front agency with responsibilities for ethnic policy highlight the Friends’ importance as a recipient of propaganda on Tibet.
For at least two of the Friends’ China visits, in 2009 and 2015, PRC state sources indic- ate that it was the ILD or its front CAFIU that invited the Italian guests to China, which may conceivably have been the case for other trips by the Association as well.144 Re- ports on these visits over the years point to the PRC side being usually represented by an ILD deputy head. A report on the earliest meeting of which we could find evid- ence, in 2008, mentions then ILD deputy head Zhang Zhijun among the party- state cadres involved, also including deputy ministers and members of the National
Italian media, Berlinghieri played an important role in getting a donation of Covid-19 testing equipment from China to a hospital of Brescia in March 2020 (“Coronavirus a Brescia: maxi donazione di materiale sanitario dalla Cina”, Corriere.it, 5th Apr. 2020; “Marina Berlinghieri: La mia vita di deputata”, La mia camera
团 ”, BGI, 29th Apr. 2020). The equipment was provided by Beijing Genomics Institute Group (华大集
,BGI), which has already gained attention due to its increasing global footprint and its activities in China. A BGI subsidiary was involved in building genetic databases in China, in partnership with provincial public security bureaus (Emile Dirks & James Leibold, “Genomic surveillance: Inside China’s DNA dragnet”, ASPI Policy Brief 34 [2020]). In a sign of the suspicions raised by BGI activities, in July 2020 the US state of California rejected BGI supplies of Covid-19 testing equipment, out of concerns about giving China access to sensitive patient data (Jeanne Whalen & Elizabeth Dwoskin, “California rejected Chinese company’s push to help with coronavirus testing. Was that the right move?”, The Washington Post [2nd July 2020]). On BGI activities and partnerships abroad, including discussion of DNA database cooperation, see Rolland, op. cit., p. 13; Yves Moreau, “Crack down on genomic surveillance”, Nature (3rd Dec. 2019).
144
2nd Dec. 2015; “ “ ” : ”, , via CCTV, 18th Aug. 2009. On CAFIU and its relationship to the ILD, see 1.1.1.
People’s Congress.145 In 2015, the Association’s meetings involved its then president Vinicio Peluffo and ILD deputy head Guo Yezhou .146
While the ILD appears to have been the Friends’ main interlocutor and the organiser of its China trips, these Italian delegations also typically met leading cadres (usually a deputy chair) of the CPPCC. This was the case in 2010 and 2012, when the Associ- ation’s then president Erminio Quartiani (Democratic Party) met with CPPCC deputy chairs (Li Jinhua in 2010, Sun Jiazheng in 2012).147 Even when visit- ing Tibet, the delegation met a deputy chairman of the autonomous region’s People’s Political Consultative Conference.148 In 2019, the meetings involved both the CPPCC’s chair — the CCP’s top united front cadre — and one of its vice chairs.149
The PRC hosts’ view of the Association as an audience for showcasing the party’s eth- nic minority policy, evidenced in the Tibet visits discussed below, further manifested itself as an encounter with a key united front ethnic affairs agency less prominent in international exchanges. During the Association’s 2013 visit, the ILD arranged a meet- ing with Li Xiaoman , then a member of the party group of the State Ethnic Affairs Commission (SEAC).150 The SEAC was at the time still a government organ, to be directly absorbed by the UFWD in 2018. According to a state-media account of the meeting, Li introduced to the guests the SEAC’s main organs and scientific development projects aimed at improving life in ethnic minority areas.151
2.1.3 Friendship at work: promoting “the new Tibet”
The Friends’ visible activities consist of over a decade’s worth of seemingly yearly meetings with PRC officials. Tibet is a key focus of the CCP’s use of the Association: its Italian delegations have been taken to Tibetan areas, explicitly asked to relay party propaganda on its rule of Tibet. and, if state-media accounts are to be believed, respon- ded positively to that request.
The Association’s frequent trips to China often included visits to Tibet, a region that is often off-limits to foreign dignitaries and media.152 Evidence is available for Associ- ation visits to Tibet from as early as 2008, continuing until at least 2019.153 In addition
145“Documentazione per l’attività internazionale 48”, Servizio rapporti internazionali, Camera dei depu-
146“郭业洲会见意大利议会 “中国之友” 协会主席佩鲁弗一行”, 共产党新闻网, 26th Mar. 2015; “郭业
洲1副47“部李长金”华, IL在D京.
会见意大利议会中国之友协会代表团”, 新华, via gov.cn, 23rd Aug. 2010; “孙家正会见
共意产大党利新客闻人网”, 新; “全华国, v政ia 协CP副PC主C席, 29李th金A华ug来. 2到01株2; 洲cf.考“孙察家正”, 新华, via gov.cn, 11th Mar. 2013; “李金华”,
149“郭业洲会见意大利议会“中国之友” 协会考察团”; “夏宝龙会见意大利议会“中国之友” 协会考察
150“李小满会见意大利议会 “中国之友” 协会主席一行”, SEAC, via 环球网, 8th July 2013.
152The Tibet access granted to the Association resembles that enjoyed by CCP-aligned groups elsewhere, notably the now suspended European Parliament China Friendship Group (Lulu, “Repurposing democracy”,
153“Documentazione per l’attività internazionale 48”; “意大利议会“中国之友” 协会访藏代表团…”; “新 2015; “自治区领导与意大利议会 “中国之友” 协会…”
to Beijing and the Tibetan Autonomous Region, the Friends also visited Tibetan areas in Yunnan province, as well as Inner Mongolia.154
PRC reporting on these visits quotes Italian delegations’ praise for the PRC gov- ernment’s respect for Tibetan culture.155 State-media accounts of a 2019 visit led by Marino provide an example. Coverage of a meeting quoted the city party secretary’s request to Marino “not to offer a platform to any ‘Tibetan independence’ splittist events” or allow “the 14th Dalai Lama or the Dalai clique to scurry to visit Italy” or arrange interactions between them and Italian officials. The secretary hoped the Association delegation would “introduce the real, developing new Tibet to persons from various sectors in Italy and Europe”.156 The stories quote Marino as praising the TAR’s “achievements” in areas such as “management of ethnic and religious affairs” and stating he would “do the utmost to propagandise Tibet’s situation to various sec- tors in Italy”.157
2.2 The Institute for Chinese Culture: Expanding the party’s ‘circle of friends’
The Institute for Chinese Culture (Istituto per la Cultura Cinese, ICC), established in 2016 and first publicly presented in 2017, emerged as a more ambitious cooption and propaganda project than the older parliamentary Friends. Not only did the new In- stitute enjoy stronger backing in the CCP’s foreign influence machine, including the ILD’s top leadership and key organs in the party’s propaganda system: as a propa- ganda platform with vague goals and a neutral-sounding ‘cultural’ theme, it achieved legitimacy beyond the usual circle of CCP-aligned figures to earn the endorsement of senior, mainstream and even CCP-critical actors in Italian politics and media.
Unlike the above described Friendship Association, the Institute for Chinese Culture had a public website in Italian. ICC’s website appears to have been taken offiine soon after an early draft of this paper was circulated for review. At the time of writing, no official announcements could be found on the discontinuation of the Institute, while an on-going arts exhibition celebrating the sister-city relationship between Bari and Guangzhou referred to ICC’s support.158
2.2.1 ICC and Italian politics: A foothold in the mainstream
The success of ICC’s progress towards the mainstream relies on its networking ability among influential politicians, with the PRC embassy’s endorsement further lending it an official appearance.
The Institute was established in 2016 on the joint initiative of then Senator Aless- andro Maran (Democratic Party) and the PRC embassy, under the government of
154“意大利议会 “中国之友” 协会代表团访华行程圆满结束 (图)”, CRI, via 搜狐, 7th July 2017; “Italia-
3rd July 2017; “意大利议会 “中国之友” 协会议员代表团来访内蒙古”, 内蒙古新闻网, 1st Sept. 2012.
156“ “ ” ”, ,
4th Aug. 2019. A Tibetan-language version omits the mentions of the Dalai Lama
(“པད་མ་དབང་འདུས་ནས་དབྱི་ཊ་ལིའི་གྲོས་ཚོགས་ཁང་གི་རྟོགས་ཞིབ་ཚོགས་པ་དང་བཞུགས་མོལ་གནང་།”, བོད་ལྗོངས་འཕྲིན་དྲ།, 5th Aug. 2019).
157“ …”; “པད་མ་དབང་འདུས་ནས་…”
158“Axis of Time: domani l’inaugurazione della mostra collettiva di artisti cinesi apre gli eventi in pro- gramma per il 35°anniversario del gemellaggio Bari-Canton”, Comune di Bari, 28th Oct. 2021.
Matteo Renzi (then Democratic Party, now Italia Viva). Its statute furthermore ex- pressly provides for the ex officio participation of representatives of both the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Chinese Embassy in the meetings of its leading bodies.159
ICC’s successive leaders have included key parliamentary figures, presiding over a membership that an ICC claim puts above a tenth of that of the combined houses of Parliament.
The institute’s first president, Alessandro Maran, was succeeded by Vito Petrocelli (Five Star Movement), chair of the Senate’s Foreign Affairs Committee.160 The next president, appointed in 2019, was Ettore Rosato (Italia Viva), a deputy president of the Chamber of Deputies.161 The PRC ambassador received Rosato on the day of his appointment to congratulate him.162 The bestowal of such an appointment with the PRC ambassador’s public blessing, making the holder of a senior parliamentary office the leader of an entity mediating exchanges with major CCP influence agencies, came at a critical moment for the party’s propaganda efforts in Italy, a mere two weeks after the PRC embassy’s public rebuke to parliamentarians who had participated in a Senate hearing with the Hong Kong pro-democracy activist Joshua Wong ( ) attracted condemnations from politicians and the “disappointment” of Italy’s foreign ministry.163 The embassy’s “hope” that “the relevant persons” in Italian politics would “commit themselves to actions contributing to friendship and cooperation”, rather than “the opposite”, thus appeared to be fulfilled.164
In 2020, an ICC press release claimed that since 2016 it could “boast the enrollment of over 100 parliamentarians between the Chamber of Deputies and Senate”.165 ICC does not publish a full list of its members, making such claims hard to verify.166 However, as shown below, available information on ICC’s events and China trips does point to its capacity to garner significant and often relatively diverse participation across most of the political spectrum.167 The blurred line between ICC and official PRC em- bassy events, potentially inducing a confusion between diplomatic and propaganda activities, may contribute to ICC’s success attracting political representatives.
159“Statuto”, ICC, 26th Jan. 2021, Art. 3.
160“Nuovi Organi Sociali”, ICC, 12th Dec. 2019; “Il Presidente della 3a Commissione Senato…”, ICC, via Facebook, 10th Aug. 2018; “Istituto per la Cultura Cinese presenta in Senato il volume “Governare la Cina” di Xi Jinping”, ICC, 20th Sept. 2017.
161“Presidenza”, ICC; “Ufficio di Presidenza”, Camera dei deputati, 26th Jan. 2021; “Il Presidente della 3a
Commissione Senato…”
162“Nuovi Organi Sociali”.
163“Hong Kong, La libertà di tutti. La posizione dell’Italia sui diritti umani”, Radio Radicale, 28th Nov. 2019; “Il portavoce dell’Ambasciata Cinese in Italia chiarisce la posizione in merito alla videoconferenza di Joshua Wong con alcuni politici italiani”, Ambasciata della Repubblica Popolare Cinese in Italia, 29th Nov. 2019; Fabio Greco, “”Inaccettabile ingerenza”. La Farnesina replica all’attacco cinese su Joshua Wong”, Agi, 29th Nov. 2019.
164“Il portavoce dell’Ambasciata Cinese in Italia chiarisce la posizione in merito alla videoconferenza di
Joshua Wong con alcuni politici italiani”.
165“50 anni di relazioni diplomatiche Italia-Cina: traguardi e prospettive”, ICC, 24th Nov. 2020.
166A now effectively defunct CCP-linked group in the European Parliament’s claim of a membership ap- proaching 50 MEPs appeared to be exaggerated: hardly more than a dozen MEPs have been shown to be actively involved, with others possibly listed as members solely on account of having attended an event (Lulu, op. cit., pp. 10 sqq.; cf. Peter Teffer, “China houdt maar weinig vrienden over in het Europees Parle- ment”, Follow the Money, 7th Apr. 2021).
167On a particularly large ICC-led delegation, see n. 178 below.
Figure 5: Ambassador Li Junhua congratulates Vice-President of the Chamber of Deputies Ettore Rosato on his recent nomination as ICC president, two weeks after the same ambassador reproached a cross-party group of Italian legislators for partaking in a video-conference with Joshua Wong. Source: ICC.
A frequent presence in ICC activities is Davide Antonio Ambroselli, who serves in the Senate legislative office for the Italia Viva party. Ambroselli is ICC’s last known deputy president and director.168 His attendance at multiple meetings with PRC part- ners going back to 2017 suggests a possible organisational role.169
Other appointments at the Institute indicate connections at the international level, as well as an overlap with other PRC-linked networks. ICC’s scientific committee is led by Stefania Giannini, minister of education, universities and research during the Renzi administration, later appointed as UNESCO’s top education official.170 Its “regional ambassadors” include Mauro Marino, a senator associated with the Parlia- mentary Association of Italy-China Friendship.171
The attendance of senior politicians at ICC events points to the institute’s clout beyond its membership.
The ICC’s April 2017 launch event, held at the Senate, was attended by the then pres- ident of the Senate, Pietro Grasso (then Democratic Party (2013-17), now with Liberi e Uguali), and a former president of the Chamber of Deputies, Senator Pier Ferdin- ando Casini (Centristi per l’Europa).172 Grasso’s interest in Chinese-Italian relations preceded the launch: two years earlier, following a meeting with PRC premier Li Keqi- ang during a visit that saw him lecture the Central Party School on “political ethics”, he had stated his aim to relaunch relations between Italy and China and “promote
168“Presidenza”. On his LinkedIn profile, Ambroselli presents himself as ICC’s founder (“Davide Antonio Ambroselli”, LinkedIn, 26th Jan. 2021).
169“Istituto per la Cultura Cinese riceve delegazione di Pechino”, ICC, 21st Sept. 2017; “Italia-Cina: del- egazione Parlamentare in Cina, mai stata più grande (ANSA Notiziario Nazionale)”, ICC, 8th Nov. 2018.
170“Comitato Scientifico”, ICC; “Assistant Director-General for Education”, UNESCO; cf. “L’ex rettore
dell’Università per stranieri di Perugia, Stefania Giannini, condannata per danno erariale”, Il Foglieno della Ricerca (28th Apr. 2016); “Spese UniStranieri, ex ministro Giannini condannata dalla Corte dei Conti”, Il Messaggero (13th Nov. 2018).
171“Ambasciatori”, ICC, 14th July 2020. On Marino, cf. p. 31..
172Eugenio Buzzetti & Alessandra Spalletta, “Grasso: la settimana cinese dell’uomo ammirato a Pechino”, Agi, 14th Dec. 2015; “Conferenza stampa di presentazione dell’Istituto per la Cultura Cinese: ”Italia-Cina. La nuova via della seta”: Intervento del Presidente del Senato, Pietro Grasso”, Senato della Repubblica, 5th Apr. 2017.
new synergies in strategic sectors”.173 A further CCP-friendly development under Grasso’s presidency came months after ICC’s launch, when a leading Uyghur activist was denied entry to the Senate and detained by anti-terrorism police when scheduled to address a joint press conference with a senator.174
ICC’s mobilisation capabilities were demonstrated again in 2017, when it organised the presentation of the Italian translation of Xi Jinping’s book On the Governance of China, a role bestowed on selected CCP-aligned entities elsewhere.175 The event secured the attendance of Grasso (who delivered the opening speech), as well as of the then deputy president of the Chamber (current deputy minister of Foreign Af- fairs) Marina Sereni (Democratic Party), Francesco Rutelli (former mayor of Rome) and Italy’s then ambassador to China, Ettore Sequi (later head of cabinet to foreign minister Luigi Di Maio, in 2021 appointed secretary general of the ministry, still un- der Di Maio).176 As ambassador, Sequi would later attend a meeting with ILD leaders in Beijing, as part of a visiting delegation led by ICC’s then president, Vito Petro- celli.177
With extensive high-level connections and a claim to a broad membership, ICC can aspire to function as a “middle-ground” feature at bilateral events, sharing platforms with personalities who might otherwise steer away from CCP-led initiatives or be overtly critical of the PRC’s policies and human rights record. The continuous parti- cipation of the PRC ambassador in ICC events further appears to contribute to blurring the lines between what may be perceived as a bilateral event according to traditional Western standards.
2.2.2 ICC’s partners: The ILD and the propaganda system
ICC’s closest partners are in the CCP foreign affairs and propaganda systems, with the ILD acting as the organiser of its most high-profile exchanges in China. The Institute also appears to be in a strategic partnership with a GONGO with links extending to military and civilian intelligence. Beyond its own direct exchanges with these agen-
173Buzzetti & Spalletta, op. cit.; Eugenio Buzzetti, “Lectio magistralis Pietro Grasso, etica politica contro corruzione”, Agi, 7th Dec. 2015; idem, “Grasso incontra premier Li a Zhongnanhai: Rilanciare i rapporti Italia-Cina con nuove sinergie”, Agi, 12th Dec. 2015.
174“Uyghur leader detained in Italy to please China”, AsiaNews, 28th July 2017; “SOS Stato di Diritto. Emergenza Uiguri”, RadioRadicale, 26th July 2017. Dolkun Isa (a German citizen), president of the World Uyghur Congress, was detained for four hours when he was to participate in a press conference with Senator Luigi Compagna on the mass internment campaign underway in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region. On the following day, even after his release, he was again denied entry to the premises (Michele Lembo, “Il fermo di Polizia di Dolkun Isa, Segretario generale del Congresso Mondiale Uiguro: intervista a Luigi Manconi”, Radio Radicale, 26th July 2017; Claudio Landi, “Questione uigura e caso Dolkun Isa: interviste di Claudio Landi al sen. Luigi Compagna, a Laura Harth e a Dolkun Isa”, Radio Radicale, 17th July 2017).
175A seminar on the book was held in the Czech Parliament in 2016, addressed by a senior CCP external
propaganda official and some of the party’s key partners in the country: the leader of the local Commun- ist Party and academics associated with the PRC embassy and the first Confucius Institute in the country (“Seminář „Zkušenosti pro řízení a rozvoj státu””, Poslanecká sněmovna, 21st Mar. 2016; Lukáš Zádrapa, “Čínská bezpečnostní slepá skvrna, aneb jak se spolu sešli marxisti, konzervativci, ekonomové a oportun- isti”, Sinopsis, 20th Apr. 2016; Lulu & Jirouš, op. cit.).
176“Istituto per la Cultura Cinese presenta in Senato…”; “Farnesina: Di Maio nomina l’amb. Ettore Francesco Sequi suo capo di gabinetto, è l’attuale diplomatico a Pechino”, Giornale Diplomatico, 6th Sept. 2019; “Comunicato Stampa del Consiglio dei Ministri n. 18”, Presidenza del Consiglio dei Ministri, 12th May 2021; “Marina Sereni”, Ministero degli Affari Esteri e della Cooperazione Internazionale; “SERENI Marina (membro tecnico del Governo)”, Camera dei deputati.
177See section 2.2.2 below.
cies, ICC has at times played an intermediary role in their exchanges with other Italian political and media bodies.
ICC’s dual status as counterpart and intermediary is apparent in its relationship with the CCP International Liaison Department. Although it had already been sending del- egations to China since its establishment, it was a 2018 high-profile encounter with the ILD that made ICC lay claim to “the biggest [Italian] parliamentary delegation” to ever visit China, led by its then president Petrocelli.178 In Beijing, the ICC deleg- ation met the ILD’s head Song Tao , deputy head Qian Hongshan , as well as Zou Jianjun, an Italian-speaking deputy bureau chief.179 In addition to receiv- ing the delegation in Beijing, the ILD arranged for it to visit Xiamen and Chongqing, in cooperation with the local foreign affairs offices.180 Besides these ILD-arranged meetings in China, ICC’s claim to having invited an ILD deputy head to Italy where he met former PM Massimo D’Alema, a Ministry of Foreign Affairs official, and Five Star and Democratic Party figures, points to an aim to position itself as a privileged intermediary in ILD exchanges with Italian politics.181
ICC’s partnership with the CCP propaganda system manifested itself in the China trips it coorganised with state media and a province-level propaganda agency.182 ICC also republishes articles from China Radio International’s bilingual magazine Cin- italia.183 ICC has interacted with the leader of a Central Propaganda Department front dedicated to the global defence of the CCP’s human-rights policies. In September 2017, ICC and the then vice-president of the Senate, Rosa Maria Di Giorgi (Demo- cratic Party) met Huang Mengfu, the chairman of the Chinese Foundation for Human Rights Development (CFHRD).184 The meeting again pointed to ICC’s intermediary role: Huang’s visit also included talks with the D’Alema-led Italiani Europei founda- tion, as well as the International Affairs Institute (Istituto Affari Internazionali, IAI), an influential think tank whose director has served as special advisor to Josep Borrell, the EU’s top foreign policy official, and his predecessor Federica Mogherini.185
ICC also maintains exchanges with the Chinese Culture Promotion Society (CCPS), a GONGO formally supervised by a propaganda system unit but with links extending
178“Italia-China…” While the claim resists verification without a full list of members, a picture on the ICC website shows what appears to be a 19-strong delegation. On ICC’s previous China trips, see “Nuova missione dell’Istituto per la Cultura Cinese in Cina”, ICC, 13th June 2017.
179“ ”, ILD, 29th Oct. 2018; “ ”, ILD,
27th Oct. 2018; “Italia-China…” On Zou Jianjun, see n. 31 above.
180“ ”, , via , 3rd Nov. 2018; “
o利p.多ci党t.,议p.员17考.
察团来渝访问”, 重庆外事, via 微信, 2nd Nov. 2018. On the Chongqing FAO, see Goh et al.,
181According to ICC’s website, Qian Hongshan was invited to Italy by the ICC in late November 2018, soon after the ICC visit to Beijing (“Incontro tra il Vice Ministro Qian Hongshan ed il Sottosegretario agli Esteri Picchi”, ICC, 30th Nov. 2018). In addition to D’Alema, Qian’s visit included meetings wit Guglielmo Picchi (Northern League), deputy minister of foreign affairs, Patuanelli (Five Star Movement, between 2019 and 2021 minister of economic development, then for agriculture) and Matteo Orfini (Democratic Party) (ibid.; “PICCHI Guglielmo - LEGA”, Camera dei deputati; “Ministro Stefano Patuanelli”, Ministero dello Sviluppo Economico, 26th Jan. 2021; “ ”, , via , 20th Nov. 2018). PRC state media accounts of the meetings do not, however, confirm ICC’s involvement (ibid.).
182See section 2.2.3 below.
183Tony Chike Iwobi, “Anche l’Italia è una terra di mezzo”, via ICC (15th May 2019); “Palazzo Giustiniani: cerimonia di presentazione della rivista CINITALIA”, CRI. On CRI and its Italian media partnerships, see
p. 22.
184“ ”, , 23rd July 2017; “Istituto per la Cultura Cinese riceve…” On CFHRD, see p. 21 above.
185“ ”; “Nathalie Tocci”, IAI.
Figure 6: Manuel Vescovi and Davide Antonio Ambroselli pose with CCPS Vice President Guo Jie, December 2019. Source: via WeChat.
to foreign affairs and intelligence.186 An account of a 2019 meeting between CCPS’s vice president Guo Jie , ICC president Ambroselli and Senator Manuel Vescovi (Northern League), refers to a ICC-CCPS “strategic partnership” dating to 2018 and ICC’s “hope” that CCPS would “provide more assistance” for trade and cultural activ- ities.187
2.2.3 More politics than culture: ICC’s propaganda work
Although the institute’s name might appear to suggest a cultural initiative, its leader- ship, counterparts in China and activities show its political character.188 Rather than promote cultural exchanges, in practice ICC serves as a platform through which its partners in the CCP political influence and external propaganda apparatus can reach an audience in Italy’s political elite and, through mainstream media, potentially the general public.
ICC’s membership and its contacts with the ILD, a party agency primarily targeting foreign politicians, display this political, rather than cultural, profile. The institute’s network of “ambassadors” in charge of different regions of Italy illustrate the likely political, rather than cultural, considerations underlying appointments: it appears to mostly consist of politicians and businesspeople with no visible links to Chinese cul-
186On CCPS, see section 1.4.1.
187 , “ ”, , via , 25th Dec. 2019.
188ICC’s statute remains vague on its goals: “The purpose of the Association is to support and promote dialogue and mutual knowledge between the People’s Republic of China and Italy — also in its capacity as a member of the European Union — by encouraging the study and the deepening of matters of common interest to both countries, also through collaboration with international institutions, public and private bodies and organisations with similar purposes” (“Statuto”).
ture. ICC’s participation in academic partnerships appears too modest to alter this picture, being seemingly limited to a claimed role in agreements between PRC univer- sities and two counterparts in Frosinone province near Rome, including Ambroselli’s alma mater.189 Nor does ICC’s partnership with CCPS, a front organisation with polit- ical, intelligence and military links, indicate more than a nominal focus on culture. On the other hand, ICC exhibits continuity between the local partners of the CCP’s main influence agencies, with the presence in its network of at least one politician associ- ated with the older parliamentary friendship association.190
It is the CCP’s propaganda narratives, rather than Chinese culture, that ICC receives and relays. The institute’s 2017 interaction with a Propaganda Department “human rights” front was indeed in line with the propaganda system’s goals: in his talks with Italian politicians, the visiting cadre referred to the PRC’s “great human rights achievements”, “especially in the last five years”, i.e., the period since Xi’s accession to power, featuring the deployment of his genocidal policies towards Uyghurs.191 ICC’s website itself helps communicate the CCP’s narrative on human rights, publishing and linking to articles by academics that feature some of its motifs, such as the success of the Chinese model or the disappearance of poverty in China.192
The ICC’s extensive political network in Italy provides a platfrom to amplify this trans- mission, with high-profile events promoting Xi Jinping’s oeuvre, themes of his tenure, and the relationship with the communist state in general. The ceremony for the public launch of the ICC in 2017 was held under the motto “Italy-China, the new Silk Road”, alluding to Xi’s geopolitical initiative, a pillar of CCP propaganda abroad.193 The same year, the ICC-organised presentation of Xi’s book was attended of its president and other high-level figures.194 ICC’s role in a 2020 conference call to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Italy’s recognition of the PRC, misrepresented as the start of diplo- matic relations between Italy and China (in fact dating to imperial times), supports another tenet of CCP propaganda: the identification of China as a country with the totalitarian party-state.195
Beyond such elite-focused activity, ICC supports the CCP propaganda system’s efforts to reach the general public through mainstream Italian media. The available evidence shows that ICC was directly involved in organising a China trip by Italian journal- ists in 2018.196 The trip included journalists from public broadcaster RAI and three
189“Chongqing-Cassino. Presentato il primo protocollo patrocinato dall’Istituto per la Cultura Cinese”, ICC, 11th May 2017; “All’Accademia di Belle Arti di Frosinone 160 studenti in arrivo dalla Cina grazie all’Istituto per la Cultura Cinese”, ICC, 28th July 2017.
190See n. 171 above.
191 , “ ”, , via CFHRD, 29th Sept. 2017;
“Istituto per la Cultura Cinese riceve…”
192Francesco Grillo, “La fine della lunga rincorsa e Lezioni Cinesi”, ICC, 18th Dec. 2019; “L’anno del bufalo. La Cina e noi. Stroncature”, Diritto Cinese, 18th Mar. 2021. The “Diritto Cinese” (Chinese Law) website is linked to from the ICC website.
193“Conferenza stampa di presentazione dell’Istituto per la Cultura Cinese: ”Italia-Cina. La nuova via della
seta”: Intervento del Presidente del Senato, Pietro Grasso”.
194On the book presentation, see p. 37 above.
195On the conference call, see p. 43.
196An article on the trip on ICC’s website was posted in August 2018, but refers to the event as having taken place in 2017 (“Delegazione giornalisti italiani nel Sichuan”, ICC, 28th Aug. 2018). This appears to be a mistake, as all other available sources report that the trip took place in June 2018 (see next footnote).
Figure 7: ICC event to present Xi Jinping’s book, September 2017. Source: ICC.
major newspapers, La Repubblica, Corriere della Sera and Il Giornale.197 The declared goal of the initiative was to “explore new opportunities for cooperation between Italy and China”.198 The identity of ICC’s partners points to the propagandistic nature of such cooperation: together with ICC and the PRC embassy in Italy, the project was organised by China Media Group, its subordinate unit CRI, and the Sichuan party com- mittee’s Office of External Propaganda, using its government nameplate.199 While it is difficult to assess whether these interactions have had any significant impact on Italian media coverage of China, they have helped cement the CCP propaganda sys- tem’s position as an acceptable partner of mainstream — including public — media in Italy.
2.2.4 Critics as legitimisers: Mainstreaming propaganda
With a nominal “cultural” theme and the neutral-sounding goal of developing and strengthening relations with China,200 the well-connected ICC has allowed its part- ners in the CCP’s foreign influence apparatus to reach a larger pool of interlocutors in politics and media than lesser CCP-aligned groups. The explicit alignment with CCP narratives by senior politicians closely involved with ICC, an evident propaganda suc- cess, is matched by a less obvious one: the endorsement of the platform as a legitimate
197
198
“ ” ”, , 21st June 2018.
“Delegazione giornalisti italiani nel Sichuan”.
199Liu is visible in a picture in , op. cit. On these propaganda organs, see sections 1.3.1, 1.3.2. Liu Pai, an Italian-speaking CRI journalist, accompanied the delegation (cf. n. 99).
200“Alessandro Maran, Occorre infittire le relazioni Italia-Cina”, ICC, 6th Apr. 2017.
interlocutor by mainstream entities that are neutral, ambivalent or openly critical to- wards aspects of CCP policy. Thanks to that endorsement, the platform can aspire to a “middle-ground” position, legitimising CCP narratives by making them as respectable as, say, the defence of human rights.
ICC’s core offers examples of discourse in overt alignment with CCP propaganda goals. An example of an outcome fully meeting the CCP’s goals is the already cited case of Petrocelli. In a recent interview with La Repubblica, former ICC president Petrocelli, still chairing the Senate’s Foreign Affairs Committee, questioned reports on ethnic persecution in Xinjiang.201 He also stated he hoped to organise a visit to Xinjiang by Italian politicians, suggesting he would expect the kind of access to the autonomous region the CCP only offers to those willing to openly deny the exist- ence of its genocidal policies.202 The day after the Italian interview appearead, Petro- celli was “commend[ed]” at the PRC MFA regular press conference “for his courage to speak up for objectivity, truth and justice”.203 On the same day, a Xinjiang propa- ganda official cited Petrocelli’s statements in his concluding remarks at one of a series of press conferences CCP authorities have been holding in an effort to counter the in- creasing international scrutiny of its human rights record in the region.204
Other politicians associated with ICC may refrain from such overt alignment, while still endorsing CCP narratives. A Northern League senator who has participated in ICC exchanges with CCP influence agencies, Manuel Vescovi, was among those con- demning Petrocelli’s remarks on Xinjiang, demanding that he “resign from his post [as Chairman of the Senate’s Foreign Affairs Committee] if [he] th[ought] he c[ould] hap- pily flatter a totalitarian regime”.205 Despite his recent condemnation of Petrocelli’s remarks, Vescovi attended a video call in April 2020 on the signature of an agreement involving CCPIT’s Shandong province equivalent.206 The aim of that agreement was to set up a “Health Silk Road” to connect Chinese suppliers of medical equipment to Italian small and medium enterprises. While this project may have led to positive outcomes, the so-called “Health Silk Road” is still a component of Xi’s Belt and Road Initiative, hence of CCP propaganda adapted to Covid-era diplomacy. The launch of
201Concetto Vecchio, “M5s, Petrocelli: “Io filocinese. Vorrei il Movimento di Conte vicino alle idee di Grillo””, La Repubblica (17th June 2021).
202Ibid.
203“2021 6 18 ”, MFA, 18th June 2021; “Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Zhao Lijian’s Regular Press Conference on June 18, 2021”, MFA, 18th June 2021. Praise of
204“ ” 中方：赞赏发出客观43真实正义之声”, CNS, 18th June 2021. ”, , 19th June 2021; “The 11th Press Conference by Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region on Xinjiang-related Issues in Beijing”, Tianshannet, 20th June 2021. Xu Guixiang , who delivered these remarks, is a deputy head of the
, 11th Aug. 2021). On government spokespeople and information offices and their position within the CCP propaganda system, see p. 20.
205Concetto Vecchio, “M5S, Petrocelli filocinese fa arrabbiare Lega e Pd: ”Parole inaccettabili””, La Repub- blica, 17th June 2021. Vescovi was identified on the ICC website as its “ambassador” for Tuscany (“Am- basciatori”). He took part in ICC’s meeting with a CCPS leader in 2019 ( , op. cit.). Vescovi appears in pictures of the ICC delegation that met ILD leaders in 2018 and met ILD deputy head Qian Hongshan during his Italy visit later that month (“Italia-China…”; “Incontro tra il Vice Ministro Qian Hongshan
ed il Sottosegretario agli Esteri Picchi”, ICC, 30th Nov. 2018).
206“Nasce la Via della Salute tra Cina e Italia grazie a Conflavoro PMI”, Conflavoro PMI.
the Health Silk Road strengthens BRI-themed propaganda while providing a tool to control the narrative on the pandemic, painting the PRC in a positive light.207
Moreover, unlike less successful influence platforms, ICC has reached enough respect- ability to attract the participation of figures far from this propagandistic core, or even critical of it. Such criticism lends ICC an aura of neutrality that obscures its nature as a partner of key CCP influence agencies. The case of Piero Fassino (Democratic Party), the chair of the Chamber of Deputies’ Foreign Affairs Committee, illustrates the role critics can play in such legitimisation. Fassino, an influential legislator openly critical of the CCP’s human-rights track record who has publicly confronted the PRC am- bassador on their human rights violations, also attended the 50th anniversary event involving ICC.208 In November 2021, Fassino participated in the Italian leg of a series of online events titled “Xinjiang is a wonderful land”, organised by the Xinjiang gov- ernment and PRC embassies. In Italy, the event had Petrocelli as Italian organiser, with the participation of a Xinjiang vice chair, the PRC ambassador, other Five Star Move- ment members, as well as so-called former “trainees” of detention camps.209 Heeding warnings that the event was set up to serve CCP denialist propaganda of its Xinjiang policies,210 the event had been taken out of the Committee’s official agenda and de- nounced by politicians from several parties. Fassino still chose to attend, later telling Italian media that during the event he had expressed his stance that “no success in economic development can legitimise the grave human rights violations” the com- mittee had previously condemned.211 While a statement to that effect may have been awkwardly received at the event, predictably none of it made it to the extensive cov- erage of the event by CCP propaganda in Chinese and foreign languages.212 Xinhua used Petrocelli and Fassino’s presence to state the event had been “jointly held” with “the foreign affairs committees” of both houses of Parliament, “showcasing develop- ment and prosperity” in Xinjiang.213 Whatever might have been actually said at the closed-door event, the message reaching global audiences through the official read- out spread by CCP media was that Petrocelli and Fassino, as presidents of their re- spective committees, “both recognized the achievements of the region and China in recent years” and “expressed the wish that understanding and cooperation would be further strengthened via such exchanges.”214 By acceding to participate in a denialist propaganda exercise, a CCP-sceptical voice had been used to legitimise and main- stream totalitarian platforms and narratives, while drowning the explicit criticism and refusal to partake of the majority of committee members.
Progress of a similar nature is on display in the party’s external propaganda apparatus’ ICC-mediated outreach to mainstream Italian media. Reporting and commentary pub-
207Jacob Mardell, “China’s “Health Silk Road”: Adapting the BRI to a pandemic-era world”, Merics, 25th Nov. 2020.
208“Presidenza italiana G20, audizione ambasciatore Cina”, Camera dei de deputati, 24th Mar. 2021; “I 50 anni delle relazioni diplomatiche tra l’Italia e la Repubblica Popolare Cinese”, pierofassino.it, 1st Dec. 2020; Carmelo Caruso, “”Una vicenda dai contorni inquietanti. La Cina risponda”. Parla Fassino”, Il Foglio, 16th Sept. 2020.
209“Organizzato in Italia il simposio online “Xinjiang è una terra meravigliosa””, CRI, 10th Nov. 2021.
210Harth, “Occhio!”
211Francesco Bechis, “From Xinjiang with love. Se la propaganda cinese sbarca a Roma”, Formiche,
212
213
” ”, , 10th Nov. 2021.
“Xinjiang residents tell stories of regional development, prosperity”, CCTV, 10th Nov. 2021.
214Ibid.
lished by some of the outlets involved in these exchanges often strongly differs from the coverage the CCP would prefer.215 Suppressing such non-compliant content, or even effectively countering it with enough propaganda-aligned alternatives, remains beyond the CCP’s capabilities in areas not controlled by the party’s repressive appar- atus. Absent an ability to directly manage content, however, the propaganda system can still influence the mainstream through exchanges that gradually legitimise it as a partner of key opinion-shaping entities in the target country. A perception of main- streamness is as important for domestic as for external propaganda purposes: by par- ticipating in a Sichuan propaganda tour,216 Italian journalists helped state media ce- ment the unquestionability of the party’s repressive machine with what it predictably construed as a foreign endorsement of its largest arm, the Ministry of Public Secur- ity (MPS). A story on the visit on an MPS-managed news outlet described the Italian media delegation’s police-themed tour of Han and Tibetan areas, in cooperation with the Propaganda Division of the the province’s analogue of the ministry: “wherever they went, the Italian journalists praised Sichuan public security work”.217
215Cf., e.g., ““A Wuhan fatte sparire le vere origini del Covid””, Il Giornale (25th June 2021); “Argomenti: Xinjiang”, La Repubblica.
216See p. 40 above.
217 , op. cit.
3 CCP influence at the subnational level
Below the exposure accorded to national politics, the CCP’s cultivation of local-level stakeholders allows it to insulate interactions from media and other scrutiny. At the subnational level, the asymmetric levels of understanding of the political and eco- nomic realities between the CCP’s dedicated organs and foreign officials’ knowledge of each others’ political and economic realities is even higher, a disparity that lets the CCP exploit the expectations of often unquestioning interlocutors. The importance of localised cooption work, previously studied in the Nordics and elsewhere,218 is equally relevant to the CCP’s influence work in Italy. Previous research has brought attention to the Italian presence of the CPAFFC, the primary local-focused influence organ in the CCP foreign affairs system: a key CPAFFC Italian partner, the Italy-China Friend- ship Association led by the lobbyist and former politician Irene Pivetti, was active as early as 2013.219
Pivetti’s association is not, however, the only CPAFFC partner in Italy. Since the mid- 2010s, a new entity has emerged as a key partner of both the CPAFFC and CCPIT’s exchanges with local governments in Italy.
3.1 The Italy-China Link Association: A CPAFFC/CCPIT subnational facilitator
The case of a recent recipient of the “friendship association” mantle illustrates the economics of cooption work: at a negligible cost, CCP influence agencies can sate the appetite for prestigious-sounding titles and invitations common among lesser actors in the lobbying and consulting industry, turning them into tools to convince local politicians and officials to join propaganda initiatives they may hope will result in increased trade or investment. In the mid-2010s, CCPIT and the CPAFFC developed a relationship with a consultant with political contacts concentrated in one of Italy’s regions, offering her symbolic perks that outranked her prominence in Italian polit- ical networks: most notably, an invitation to attend a CPAFFC anniversary event, addressed by Xi Jinping himself. This relationship grew into a new entity, whose core purpose appears to be to facilitate these CCP-controlled organs’ exchanges with local governments within the network of the consultant and her partners. These exchanges fit a pattern familiar from localised influence work elsewhere: local authorities accede to participate in propaganda initiatives, typically invoking Xi’s signature geopolitical scheme, while obtaining no tangible benefits for their regions.
3.1.1 A network of consultants’ potential for localised influence work
The Italy-China Link Association (ICLA) was established in 2017 by a consultant with contacts in the local-level public sector and the attendant consulting industry. Before ICLA’s establishment, as a vehicle of CPAFFC and CCPIT subnational interaction, the consultant and her network This network’s access to local government circles cre- ated a potential that CPAFFC and CCPIT were exploiting by the mid-2010s. Against this background, ICLA’s establishment appears as the crystallisation of these influ- ence agencies’ relationship with a consultant network into a dedicated intermediary entity.
218Lulu, “Confined discourse management and the PRC’s localised interactions in the Nordics”.
219Poggetti, op. cit.
According to its website, the association “connects I[talian excellencies] & C[hinese excellencies]” to create “an interdisciplinary network” devoted to “win-win projects in Italy and China”.220 Its statutes summarise its scope of activity as the development of “relations of friendship and exchange” between such “excellencies”, encompassing culture, education, research, business and other areas.221
ICLA’s founder and president is Maria Moreni, described in online profiles as a “[c]on- sultant [ac]credited to the Presidency of the Council of Ministers” and a “parliament- ary consultant”.222 More than a decade before ICLA’s establishment, Moreni founded and presided over the non-profit association Physeon, whose stated goal was to pro- mote the internationalisation of Italian companies, “gather[ing] together the world of Research and Innovation of Excellence in all domains”.223 Physeon’s official web- site is no longer online and the association, still active in 2017, might no longer be operating. However, ICLA appears to have inherited aspects of Physeon’s role, if not entirely replaced it, given that it shares some of its partners and declared aims.
Already in her Physeon days, Moreni possessed a network of contacts with subna- tional governments.224 Although mostly concentrated in Lombardy and, in particu- lar, her home province of Brescia, the geographical reach of Moreni’s network was supplemented by her further partnerships, extending to Veneto and Sicily.225
The presence of a long-term associate of Moreni, who often joins her at events in- volving PRC and Italian entities, gives the endeavour government links, as well as further overlap with CCP-linked activities. Carlo Capria is ICLA’s co-president and was already involved with Physeon, of which he was a co-founder and later honor- ary president, among other roles.226 He previously held positions at the PM Office, the Ministry of Economic Development and its predecessor agency, with responsibil- ities including supporting the internationalisation of small and medium-sized enter- prises.227 Capria was, in his own right, a familiar face to CCP-linked entities as early as 2016.228
ICLA also features other figures engaged in China-themed consulting. Jim Zheng (Zheng Jinjiang ), ICLA’s vice president, also established the Padua-based OpenGate China, another association promoting Italy-China exchanges, together with Marco Toson, a consultant associated with Ukrainian interests.229 As in Capria’s case, Zheng’s own contacts with CCP-linked entities predate ICLA’s establishment.230
Moreni’s network is further linked to CCP influence through its overlap with the activities of Michele De Gasperis, a consultant who founded and leads an “OBOR In-
220“ICLA Italy - China Link Association”, ICLA.
221“Atto costitutivo”, ICLA, 13th Sept. 2017.
222“Maria Moreni”, LinkedIn; “Maria Moreni”, Comunicazione italiana.
223“Chi siamo”, Physeon; “Moreni (LinkedIn)”; “Moreni (Comunicazione italiana)”; “Associazione Physeon Presentazione & Happy Expo 2015”, Physeon, via SlideShare, 18th May 2015.
224“Partners”, Physeon.
225See section 3.1.3.
226“ICLA Italy - China Link Association”; “Associazione Physeon Presentazione & Happy Expo 2015”; “Organigramma”, Physeon; “Comitato Scientifico PERMANENTE”, Physeon; “Carlo Capria”, AEREC.
227“CV Carlo Capria”, Ministero dello Sviluppo Economico, 8th Jan. 2018; “Carlo Capria”, Comunicazione
italiana; “Ruolo del personale non dirigenziale della Presidenza del Consiglio dei Ministri e del Departi- mento della Protezione Civile”, Presidenza del Consiglio dei Ministri, 1st Jan. 2018; “Carlo Capria”.
228See section 3.1.2.
229“Associazione OpenGate China”, OpenGate China, 24th June 2021; “Marco Toson”, LinkedIn.
230See section 3.1.2.
Figure 8: From left: Maria Moreni, Marco Toson and Michele De Gasperis attending the China-Italy Local Government Cooperation Dialogue, November 2019. Source: CNS.
stitute” and has claimed an earlier affiliation linked to the CCP National Development and Reform Commission.231
3.1.2 ICLA as a CPAFFC and CCPIT intermediary
Years before the rise of ICLA, Moreni was emerging as an intermediary facilitating the CPAFFC and CCPIT’s contacts with local stakeholders. ICLA’s establishment suggests a specialisation in this facilitation activity, in turn recognised by the CCP-led agencies with rewards matching the traditional role of a node in the “friendship association” network, such as an appointment at a supranational front entity and a friendship award.
The CPAFFC publicly made Moreni a partner soon after the establishment of another friendship association, whose secretary-general may have ushered her into her inter- mediary role. Moreni received an open endorsement from the CPAFFC in 2014, when she was invited to attend a ceremony to mark the Association’s 60th anniversary. Her fellow attendees at the event, addressed by Xi Jinping and covered on the CCTV evening news, point to the significance of the invitation: they included Romano Prodi, formerly Italy’s PM and president of the European Commission, and high-profile CPAFFC friends such as Gianfranco Terenzi, former captain regent of San Marino, Jaroslav Tvrdík, the CEFC, then CITIC-employed face of the pro-Beijing lobby in the Czech Republic, and former US president Richard Nixon’s grandson Christopher Nixon Cox.232 Moreni’s public emergence as a CPAFFC partner coincided with inter-
231Poggetti, op. cit., p. 15; “Michele De Gasperis”, LinkedIn, 11th June 2021; “Michele De Gasperis —
232“ ”, CCTV, 15th May 2014. On Terenzi, see “San Marino, muore investito da un suo cam- ion Gianfranco Terenzi, imprenditore ed ex Capitano Reggente”, Chiamamicittà; Luca Salvatori, “Terenzi politico, imprenditore e grande amico della Cina”, Rtv San Marino, 20th May 2020; “La visita dei Capitani Reggenti in Cina - Febbraio 1988”, Associazione San Marino Cina; “
”, CPAFFC, 31st Oct. 2017; on Tvrdík, Hála & Lulu, “Lost in translation: ‘Economic diplomacy’ with
(a) Moreni, attending a speech by Xi Jinping at (b) Moreni (left) with ICFA’s Wang Yan
the CPAFFC’s 60th anniversary, shown in the at the CPAFFC anniversary event, May 2014. opening segment of the main state television Source: Confederazione Italiana Federazioni
news programme, May 2014. Source: CCTV. Autonome.
Figure 9: Identification of Moreni at the CPAFFC anniversary event.
actions between her and the Italy-China Friendship Association (ICFA), established a year early under the CPAFFC’s auspices.233 ICFA’s secretary-general Wang Yan
was with Moreni at the 2014 CPAFFC anniversary event.234 A month later, Physeon coorganised an ICFA visit to Sicily, for meetings with city mayors and business rep- resentatives.235 Later that year, Moreni met CPAFFC officials as part of an ICFA del- egation.236 Moreni soon became a CPAFFC intermediary in her own right. In 2016, still a year before ICLA’s establishment, she was received by CPAFFC vice president Song Jingwu in her capacity as Physeon’s leader.237 By 2017, CPAFFC offi- cials were meeting Italian local administrators at events organised by or otherwise in- volving Moreni.238 Song’s 2017 Italy trip cemented ICLA’s new position as a privileged CPAFFC partner: Song bestowed on Moreni a “friendship” award received seven years earlier by the president of the Italy-China Association, historically the CPAFFC’s main Italian partner.239 Moreni’s role involves a further appointment within CPAFFC’s net- work: according to its website, ICLA is a “co-founder” of the CPAFFC-initiated Belt and Road Local Cooperation Committee (BRLC),240 with Moreni as co-president and
Chinese characteristics”, pp. 15 sqq.; Lomová, Lulu & Hála, op. cit.; on Nixon Cox and the Richard Nixon
”, CPAFFC, 19th Jan. 2016; “李小林会长会见美国尼克松基金会主要负责人”, CPAFFC,
24th May 2019.
233Yoshihara & Bianchi, op. cit., p. 26. On ICFA, see p. 16.
234“ ”, 2:23; “Associazione Physeon Presentazione & Happy Expo 2015”, p. 6. Cf. “Rapporti commerciali Italia-Cina: delegazione ICFA in Sicilia in missione di sviluppo”, Confederazione Italiana Fed- erazioni Autonome, 18th June 2014.
235Ibid.
236“Visita a Cpaffc”, ICFA, 8th July 2014.
237“ ”, CPAFFC, 30th Mar. 2016.
238See section 3.1.3.
239“ ”. Cf. note 54.
240See section 1.1.2.
Figure 10: Moreni (first from right) and CCPIT Italian chief representative Zhang Gang visit Ortona in Abruzzo for meetings with port officials and industry association leaders, November 2016. Source: ICLA via Youtube.
Italy coordinator.241 As will be shown below,242 ICLA has succeeded in recruiting Italian provincial and municipal governments into BRLC.
CCPIT’s relationship with Moreni also precedes the establishment of ICLA. Physeon was a coorganiser of a CCPIT networking event in Lombardia in 2015.243 In 2016, Moreni, as Physeon president, accompanied CCPIT’s chief representative in Italy on visits to Abruzzo and Puglia.244 A press release on one of these visits noted that Moreni had “for years serve[d] as a reference point for promoting CCPIT/CCOIC activit- ies with Italian public and private entities”.245 Moreni’s role accompanying CCPIT’s Italian representatives on local visits continued in 2018, in her new capacity as ICLA’s president.246 CCPIT’s accounts of these exchanges appear to reflect Moreni’s rising importance as a facilitator of its subnational interactions: while in 2016 the Council’s website omitted mentioning her or Physeon in readouts of visits she attended, in 2021 it reported on a meeting with her, translating ICLA’s name with the time-honoured “friendship association” formula.247
241“Investimenti e turismo, la Provincia di Brescia incontra la Cina”, Brescia2.it, 25th Oct. 2018; “Co- operazione istituzionale governi locali cinesi e governi locali italiani”, ICLA; “List of Presidents, Honorary President, Co-Presidents, Executive President and Secretary-General of BRLC”, BRLC, 17th Dec. 2019 De Gasperis’ OBOR Institute lists among its partners the CPAFFC, with which it has signed a cooperation agreement, as well as BRLC (“ ”, , 28th Nov. 2019; “Partners”, Istituto Italiano OBOR, 11th June 2021).
242Section 3.1.3.
243“Associazione imprese cinesi in Italia Italy Networking Day”, Camera di Commercio Italo Cinese. Note also Moreni-led entities’ coorganising role in an e-commerce promotion project with, among others, CCPIT and Huawei, and involving Capria (“Verbale del Senato Accademico”, Università degli Studi di Bari Aldo Moro, 23rd Feb. 2016, p. 29).
244Laura Federicis, “Comunicazione alla Stampa - Visita in Abruzzo di ZHANG GANG, Delegato Gen-
erale del Consiglio Cinese per la promozione del Commercio Internazionale”, Confindustria Chieti Pescara, 10th Nov. 2016; “ ”, CCPIT, 10th Nov. 2016; “Puglia meet China CCPIT
-Physeon”, ICLA Italychinalink, via Youtube, 18th Nov. 2016; “Confindustria Lecce incontra la delegazione cinese guidata dal dott. Zhang Wang [sic], responsabile per l’Italia del China Council for Promotion of International Trade (CCPIT) e della China Chamber of International Commerce (CCOIC)”, Confindustria Lecce, 16th Nov. 2016.
245Ibid.
246
247“驻意大利代表处会见意中友好协会主席”, CCPIT, 20th Jan. 2021.
Beyond her active role as a local CPAFFC and CCPIT intermediary, Moreni appears to have ties also to the united front system, as she is one of the deputy presidents of the Italian chapter of the Soong Ching Ling Foundation (SCLF), a UFWD-controlled or- ganisation.248 Moreni has also posted a photograph showing her with Zhuang Rong- wen , a leading CCP propaganda cadre.249 No further evidence of contacts between Moreni and Zhuang’s work units is immediately available, suggesting they might be limited to that ‘selfie’.250
Moreni’s partners at ICLA somewhat make up for her lack of diversified links in the CCP influence apparatus beyond the CPAFFC and CCPIT.
In 2016, Carlo Capria, the then Physeon, later ICLA-affiliated official, was invited to attend the inauguration of the Italian affiliate of the Association for Yan Huang Cul- ture of China (AYHCC), a front entity supervised by the PRC’s Ministry of Culture and Tourism and linked to intelligence agencies through its top leadership.251 In 2019, the Global Times and Xinhua praised Capria’s efforts to boost ties between Italian and Chinese companies and his support for the BRI.252
In 2015, Zheng Jinjiang, later appointed ICLA vice president, became a vice president
), whose establishment ceremony Moreni attended as Capria’s representative.
At the event, Zheng and a fellow vice president read congratulatory messages from united front agencies at the central and subnational levels.254 The organisation is fur- ther linked to transnational united front networks: the leader of the Brussels-based European Chinese Youth Federation ( ), who has himself
248“Moreni (LinkedIn)”; , op. cit. On the SCLF, see p. 27.
249Maria Moreni, “Zhuang Rongwen Vice Minister of the Publicity Department of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC) thanks Maria Moreni”, LinkedIn, 18th June 2018. Zhuang’s main position was, already then, deputy head of the CCP Central Propaganda Department. Moreni’s use of a mis- translation commonly used for foreign consumption reflects her lack of familiarity with the PRC’s political system. Zhuang’s responsibilities in the propaganda system include a concurrent appointment as director
) (“庄荣文任国家互联网信息办公室主任等职务”, 人民网, 21st Aug. 2018), on whose development
250Zhuang did indeed visit Italy in June 2018 (““中华乐园” 和 “中国馆” 项目罗马启动 校际合作助力
“COMUNICATO STAMPA: Cerimonia Inaugurale dell’Associazione di Ricerca Culturale Italo-Cinese YanHuang”, Facebook, 18th June 2016. On AYHCC, see section 1.4.1.
252“Italy aims to develop closer trade ties with China through Belt and Road”, Global Times, 16th May 2019; “In Brescia, the Silk Road becomes the Taste Road”, Xinhua Silk Road Information Service, 1st Aug.
253 , “ ”, , 7th Apr. 2015;
cf. “Atto costitutivo” The youth federation appeared to exist in some form before its official launch: its first chair used it as his affiliation to co-sign a statement by diaspora organisations condemning Hong Kong protests, published by CCP-controlled media months before the 2015 launch event (“
established in Vicenza, is not to be confused with the Italian Chinese Youth Association (Associazione Giovani Cinesi in Italia, ), set up in Rome in 2012, even though the same Italian name is used for the Federation in Physeon materials (“Associazione PHYSEON”, Physeon). On this older
网 ”, 欧华联合时报, 2nd June 2019; “意大利华社多方协力 助流落罗马街头同胞回归故乡”, 中国侨
, 19th July 2021; “ ”, , via ,
25th Mar. 2020; “Esquilino, l’associazione giovani cinesi in Italia dona 3500 mascherine alla Polizia di Stato”, Roma Today, 23rd Mar. 2020; “VI Beijing Career Day: appuntamento il 12 maggio a Pechino”, Fondazione Italia Cina, 12th May 2019.
254 , op. cit.
held united front appointments in the PRC, described the new Italian group as the tenth youth federation established with the European one’s support.255
3.1.3 Coopting local governments into the Belt and Road
As an intermediary in contacts with local administrations, ICLA has helped the CPAFFC achieve key successes: notably, one province and at least four municipalities have officially joined a subnational derivative of Xi’s geopolitical initiative, without these interactions apparently bringing comparable benefits to the Italian local con- stituencies involved. ICLA’s role as an intermediary remains, however, largely limited by to the geographical reach of its network of contacts, centred in Brescia.
ICLA’s contacts have allowed the CPAFFC to add several local governments to one of its BRI-themed initiatives, while making others interlocutors of its leadership as well as of CCPIT. ICLA’s role has entered the official record: the Brescia province govern- ment’s decree announcing it would join BRLC explicitly acknowledged its interactions with ICLA among its motivations for the decision.256 In addition to the province it- self, at least three municipalities in Brescia joined BRLC.257 CCPIT exchanges with the province’s top officials have also benefited from ICLA’s mediation, including meetings and joint events.258
Beyond Moreni’s home turf of Brescia, ICLA has facilitated CPAFFC and CCPIT con- tacts with officials elsewhere in Lombardy and other regions. Following the Brescian municipalities, BRLC was eventually joined by Fermo, in the Marches.259 In 2017, CPAFFC Vice President Song Jingwu attended an “Italy-China Local Government Cooperation Day” co-organised by ICLA and CPAFFC and sponsored by the Lom- bardy region, with high-level officials from three regions (Lombardy, Puglia and Ab- ruzzo) in attendance and an opening address titled “Lombardy towards the new Silk Road”.260
The local networks of Moreni’s partners appear to allow her to extend these activities beyond Lombardy. Zheng Jinjiang and Marco Toson feature in ICLA’s activities in
255ibid. On the European Chinese Youth Federation, its first chair Fu Xuhai , and their role in united front work in the continent, see Jirouš, op. cit., pp. 86 sq.; idem, “The Role of Coopted Diaspora Groups in Czech and European United Front Work”, China Brief 20.16 (16th Sept. 2020); Filip Jirouš & Petra Śevčíková, “Covert propaganda operations in plain sight: The CCP united front system’s media network in Europe”, Sinopsis, 30th July 2021, p. 16.
256“Oggetto: adesione della Provincia di Brescia all’iniziativa di cooperazione internazionale Belt and Road Local Cooperation (BRLC)”, Provincia di Brescia, Decreto del Presidente N.459/2018, 27th Dec. 2018; cf. “Investimenti e turismo, la Provincia di Brescia incontra la Cina”.
257Carpenedolo, Montichiari and Orzinuovi (“ )”, BRLC). Orzinuovi’s mayor was Andrea Ratti, vice president of Brescia, who, in Moreni’s words, put the province “in the centre of Chinese interests” (“I Cinesi amano la provincia di Brescia”, Radio Vera, 25th Oct. 2018; Maria Moreni, “Regione Lombardia, Italy-China Link, CPAFFC: Squadra che vince si rafforza!”, LinkedIn Pulse, 8th June 2018). Further reflecting the overlap between BRLC’s membership and ICLA’s network of contacts, Moreni referred to a Carpendolo government consultant as an old friend (ibid.). Carpendolo’s BRLC membership appears to have remained active even after Moreni’s friend lost his post following his arrest while driving without a licence between two BRLC member towns (“L’assessore nei guai scaricato dal sindaco”, Bresciaoggi, 23rd May 2019; Vittorio Prestini, “Carpenedolo, guida senza patente: 6 mesi ex assessore”, QuiBrescia).
258“Italia 4.0 China 2025”, Provincia di Brescia, 18th May 2018; “La Provincia di Brescia sempre più prot-
agonista della Belt & Road cinese: dagli investimenti diretti al turismo: a che punto siamo”, Provincia di Brescia, 25th Oct. 2018; “Italy-China Friendship & Cooperation Day in Brescia Province Programa della giornata”, Smart City Association, 24th July 2019.
259“Anche Fermo guarda alla Cina: nuove prospettive per aziende e turismo”, Cronache Fermane, 29th Mar. 2019.
260“1° Italy-China Local Government Cooperation Day”, Provincia di Brescia, 26th Oct. 2017.
Figure 11: PRC Consul-General in Milan Song Xuefeng, Lombardy Vice President Fabrizio Sala, CPAFFC Vice President Song Jingwu and Carlo Capria, October 2017. Source: CPAFFC.
Veneto: in 2018, ICLA and OpenGate China coorganised a trip where Fabio Bui, vice president (later president) of Padua province, met CPAFFC’s Song Jingwu, together with Moreni, Toson and Zheng.261
ICLA’s network remains geographically limited, leaving the association far from a monopolising role as the CPAFFC and CCPIT’s local-government intermediary. When, in 2019, CPAFFC vice president Song met local administrators and a Northern League MP in Sicily, Moreni did not appear to be involved.262
Considering the cluster of intermediary entities linked to ICLA does, however, put its reach in a broader perspective. A recent BRI-themed event, opened by De Gasperis and graced by a CPAFFC representative, sheds further light on his OBOR Institute’s activities and links. The April 2021 event, titled “Belt and Road Exhibition 2021 – Digital Edition”, was attended by former Rome mayor Francesco Rutelli,263 the PRC ambassador and the president of the Tuscany region, Eugenio Gian.264 A journalist with the financial daily Il Sole 24 Ore, which signed an MOU with the CCP-controlled China Economic Daily in March 2019, moderated.265 The event illustrates how the CPAFFC and its Italian partners can successfully engage with local and national public officials, as well as reputed national media outlets.
Compared to the success for CCP localised influence work manifest in these gov- ernment endorsements of Xi’s geopolitical theme, less evidence is available of these interactions having brought meaningful economic benefits to the communities repres- ented by the local governments involved, with a possible link to an actual deal being
261“ ”, , 26th Apr. 2018; Fabio Bui, “Curriculum formativo e professionale”, Provincia di Padova, 18th Mar. 2019.
262“ ”, CPAFFCsite, 28th Oct. 2019; “Twitter feed of Alessandro Pagano”, Twitter, 25th Oct. 2019; “Alessandro Pagano”, Camera dei deputati. Moreni’s previous association had, however, coorganised a Sicily visit with ICFA in 2014 (see p. 48).
263On Rutelli, see p. 37.
264“Export, De Gasperis (Istituto Obor): ”La cultura unisce, non alziamo muri””, Adnkronos.com, 12th Apr. 2021.
265Ibid.; Harth, “Così la macchina di propaganda cinese penetra nei media italiani”.
Figure 12: Fabio Bui (fourth from left) posing with Song Jingwu (next) and Maria Moreni (at the centre), April 2018. Source: via Sohu.
burdened with data security risks and complicity with human rights abuses. The Bres- cia decree to join BRLC mentions a 2017 agreement between the province and ZTE Italy for local “smart city” services.266 Although, unlike with the BRLC membership, the sources consulted do not establish a direct role of Moreni in the ZTE deal, ICLA’s interest in the field is evidenced by a Brescia-based Smart City Association’s mem- bership in BRLC and partnership with ICLA.267 The data security risks related to the involvement of the state-controlled ZTE in smart-city and other infrastructure have led to bans and warnings in, e.g., Australia and the Czech Republic, where efforts to enlist the support of friendly local officials for smart-city plans have been noted.268 As with other major PRC providers, ZTE’s deployment of smart-city technology in Xinjiang can contribute to surveillance and repression activities that include system of ethnic reeducation camps.269 Huawei’s smart-city development in Sardinia attrac- ted media attention in 2019.270
In Veneto, where the main actor appears to be Toson and Zheng’s OpenGate China rather than ICLA, OpenGate appears to have acted as an intermediary to obtain med- ical equipment (described as donations) from China for Padua province in April 2020,
266“Oggetto: adesione della Provincia di Brescia…”
267“TSCAI among BRLC members”, TSCAI, 15th Jan. 2019; “Alliances”, TSCAI, 24th June 2021.
268Scott Morrison & Mitch Fifield, “Government Provides 5G Security Guidance To Australian Carriers”, Minister for Communications and the Arts, Media release, via Parliament of Australia, 23rd Aug. 2018; Tim Biggs & Jennifer Duke, “Government implies 5G China ban in new security advice”, Sydney Morning Herald (23rd Aug. 2018); “Varování NÚKIB před používáním softwaru i hardwaru společností Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd., a ZTE Corporation”, Národní úřad pro kybernetickou a informační bezpečnost, 17th Dec. 2018; Hála & Lulu, “Huawei’s Christmas…”; Lomová, Lulu & Hála, op. cit.
269“ZTE”, ASPI, Mapping China’s Tech Giants.
270Milena Gabanelli & Andrea Marinelli, “5G: in Italia la rete strategica è in mano alla Cina, mentre l’Europa si defila”, Corriere.it, 10th Feb. 2019.
Figure 13: CPAFFC message on a box as part of a donation organised by OpenGate China. Source: OpenGate.
in boxes emblazoned with the CPAFFC logo.271 Later that year, OpenGate claimed an involvement in the procurement of Covid-19 tests, officially adopted by the re- gion.272
271“Donazioni di materiale sanitario durante la pandemia”, OpenGate China, 28th Feb. 2020; “I veri amici sono come le stelle…”, OpenGate China, via Facebook, 5th Apr. 2020.
272“Presentazione del test rapido “fai da te””, OpenGate China, 17th Nov. 2020.
4 Conclusions and perspectives
As this study has established, the CCP uses multiple agencies across the party-state, their fronts and local intermediaries to influence Italian politics across ideological divides and at the national, regional, provincial and municipal levels, largely evading the public attention that a few high-profile figures’ displays of CCP-alignment have attracted. The recent evolution of these operations has taken them closer to redefining mainstream attitudes on the relationship with China, coopting figures with decision and opinion-making power at the national and local level into espousing or implicitly legitimising CCP policy goals, initiatives and talking points.
The use of fronts and intermediaries and the cooption of neutral or sceptical voices unable to recognise the nature of influence agencies and operations effectively out- sources the pursuit of aspects of CCP policy to its targets. The efficiency the CCP gains with this delegation to local proxies contrasts with the loss of creative, autonomous policy-making imagination Italy and other targeted democracies experience.
4.1 A multi-system influence effort
The analysis of three cases of CCP-linked entities targeting Italian parliamentary and local politics in this study has shown the existence of operations conducted by agen- cies in several of the major components of the CCP’s external influence apparatus. The International Liaison Department (ILD), the CCP’s main organ coopting foreign politicians and their parties, is present at the national level, acting as the main partner of two “friendship” groups in Parliament. Agencies in the CCP propaganda system target both politics and the media: while a Central Propaganda Department front or- ganisation has brought the party’s redefinition of human rights to politicians and well-connected think tanks, state media have brought journalists from Italy’s main- stream press on trips presented as endorsements of everything they were shown of the régime’s security policy. The united front system uses friendly Italian politicians to relay its portrayal of the repression of ethnic and religious minorities as an aid to ‘development’. Less directly, it also targets Italian politics through the involvement in influence activities of leaders of CCP-coopted diaspora organisations, the key locus of united front activity abroad. Influence agencies in the CCP’s foreign affairs and eco- nomic systems target Italy’s subnational administrations: the Chinese People’s Asso- ciation for Friendship with Foreign Countries (CPAFFC), and the China Council for the Promotion of International Trade (CCPIT) and their fronts exploit the networks of local political consultants to coopt politicians and officials down to the municipal level into the party’s geopolitical designs. Civilian and military intelligence agencies’ links to culture-themed front organisations, one of which had its first foreign affiliate set up in Italy, open further channels for the cultivation of the national and subnational political élite. Party-guided state and private businesses, such as the state-controlled ZTE, stand to benefit from contacts established through influence operations, which can make local officials receptive to deals whose security and human-rights implica- tions often meet hostile reactions in democratic societies. The evidence in these selec- ted cases thus suffices to establish the need to track the Italian influence operations of major components of the CCP-driven apparatus: the party-state’s foreign affairs, propaganda, united front, economic, and political and legal systems, as well as the influence activities of the PLA and state-controlled companies.
This study has identified two groups — the Italy-China Parliamentary Friendship Association and the Institute for Chinese Culture (ICC) — that have succeeded in getting parliamentarians across the political spectrum involved in ‘friendly’ liaison activities with CCP influence agencies, with the ILD playing the main role. The former group, most visibly treated as a vehicle for Tibet-themed propaganda, has been ec- lipsed by the newer ICC, which regularly organises initiatives targeting politicians and the media with the support of the PRC embassy and various CCP organs. Boil- erplate references to “culture” and the development of bilateral relations obscure the squarely political purposes of initiatives that on the PRC side involve CCP agencies dedicated to the cooption of foreign élite actors and seek to boost the party’s legitim- acy at home and abroad.
At the level of regional, provincial and municipal government, the case of the Italy- China Link Association (ICLA) provides evidence of intensive localised influence work by CCP influence agencies like the CPAFFC and CCPIT. The attention these central organs have dispensed to an obscure political consultant whose network is largely concentrated in one out of 107 province-level jurisdictions, at times treating it as the local node of the global network of “friendship associations”, with an invitation to a high-profile event also attended by a former Italian prime minister and European Commission president, shows the importance of granular localisation within CCP in- fluence activity.
4.2 Exploiting knowledge asymmetry to redefine the mainstream
Using local politicians, lobbyists and consultants to build intermediary entities, the CCP’s influence agencies supplement their own capabilities to coopt target policy and opinion-making élites, installing propaganda narratives as legitimate options within local political debate.The neutral image of organisations like ICC allow the ILD and other influence organs to cross the respectability threshold: the resistance bellicose diplomats or obscenely pro-CCP personages may inspire in much of the mainstream can be overcome by surrounding CCP-linked entities with “middle-ground” figures. In the logic of influence operations, the presence of critics of aspects of CCP policy at these organisations’ activities is as valuable an achievement as the faithful repe- tition of propaganda by more predictable cooptees. The adoption of the language of Xiist geopolitics, from a ‘Belt and Road’ city alliance to the ‘Health Silk Road’, in ini- tiatives endorsed by parliamentarians, local governments and business associations is a visible manifestation of these discourse-engineering successes. Less obviously for some Italian partipants, ostensibly innocuous trips and meetings by CCP-critical or indifferent figures are presented as endorsements by the CCP’s media to its captive domestic audience. For Italian, Chinese and global élites and the general public, these influence operations help turn propaganda narratives on the benignity of the CCP’s totalitarian rule and international expansionism into a new common sense of polit- ical discourse.
The relative ease with these operations in Italy and other democracies succeed rests on the knowledge asymmetry between CCP influence agencies and their foreign in- terlocutors. While organs such as the ILD have dedicated units staffed by career area specialists, Italian politicians and others involved in these exchanges typically lack any background in China’s language, history or politics. Without such knowledge, targets are unable to recognise the nature and goals of their PRC counterparts, of- ten further obscured by the use of front organisations. The opacity of the CCP-linked
parties to Italian targets contrasts with the information-gathering and analysis cap- abilities of dozens of party, state, military and other entities involved on the PRC side. The process is self-reinforcing: targets on the less-informed side of the relationship are in turn receptive to propaganda turned common sense: as best evidenced at the local level, a default belief in Xi’s “Belt and Road” as a miraculous source of economic growth and international prestige leads to no-questions-asked receptivity to influence operations.
4.3 Beyond a few case studies: Perspectives for further research
With the three case studies presented, this study lays no claim to a comprehensive overview of CCP influence work in Italy. These cases were simply selected to demon- strate the Italian presence of a representative sample of the CCP’s foreign influence agencies. Below, we note some influential entities with known interactions with the CCP influence apparatus.
The Italian-Chinese Institute (Istituto Italo-Cinese, IIC), which has held meetings with representatives of, e.g., the CPAFFC and the China Society of Human Rights Studies (CSHRS).273 In 2018, the CPAFFC “renewed” a cooperation agreement with the IIC. Like the closely linked Italy-China Foundation (Fondazione Italia Cina), the IIC is a decades-old organisation with state and business connections long associated with former Fiat CEO Cesare Romiti.274
Beyond comparatively obscure groups like the ones presented in this paper, influen- tial Italian politicians have enduring ties to CCP influence agencies. The most visible examples include former premiers Romano Prodi and Massimo D’Alema, both long- term supporters of the PRC’s role on the international stage and frequent attendees at meetings of agencies such as the ILD and the CPAFFC.275
Local consultants such as those associated to ICLA mediate only some interactions between CCP influence agencies and Italian subnational governments. For example, although ICLA’s Moreni once coorganised a Sicily trip with an older CPAFFC partner, a more recent visit to the island by a CPAFFC vice president had no noticeable ICLA involvement.276
Entities such as the ones covered in the case studies above serve as examples of plat- forms and proxies for the analysis of the operations of the CCP agencies whose influ- ence on Italy’s political mainstream they help mediate. While they may have been at
273“Who We Are”, IIC; “ ”, CPAFFC, 1st Nov. 2018; “China Society for Human Rights Studies e Istituto Italo Cinese”, IIC, 11th June 2018.
274“Rinnovo del protocollo di collaborazione con l’Associazione d’Amicizia del Popolo Cinese con l’Estero”, IIC; “ ”. The Institute was established in 1971, following the establishment of diplomatic relations with the PRC, by Vittorino Colombo, the Christian Democrats’ key figure in relations with China (“2020: cinquanta anni di relazioni diplomatiche tra Italia e Cina”, Istituto Italo Cinese, 15th Jan. 2021; Pini, op. cit., pp. 147 sq.). Romiti, who led the Institute by 2001, set up the Foundation in 2003 (Giuseppe Zois, “Valerio Bettoni: “Romiti ha saputo portare anche Bergamo in Cina””, BergamoNews, 19th Aug. 2020; “”Quella volta che ospitammo mille operai cinesi in Piemonte”. La storia di Romiti con la Cina”, Agi, 18th Aug. 2020). The Institute and Foundation continue to be personally linked, both being currently chaired by Mario Boselli, a fashion businessman and leader of business associations (“Il Cavaliere del Lavoro Mario Boselli è il nuovo Presidente della Fondazione Italia Cina”, Fondazione Italia
275
西好”城, C市PA大F会FC圆, 6满th闭Se幕pt. 2019; “钱洪山会见西欧国家政要代表团”, ILD, 25th Apr. 2019; “2012 中国国际友
276See p. 52.
times privileged intermediaries of specific actors and avenues of CCP influence work, they are recyclable and disposable partners of the party’s influence systems. Political influence operations may avail themselves of whatever rhetorical cover (‘parliament- ary democracy’, ‘dialogue’, ‘investment promotion’) and configuration of intermedi- aries (including the ones in the cases above) are expedient to the cultivation of a target. Recent and planned propaganda events involving senior political voices illustrate this adaptability. In May 2021, ICLA hosted a CCPIT-coorganised event titled “China: a different truth” which, like an earlier BRI-themed one opened by an ICLA associate, was moderated by a journalist from a newspaper partnered with CCP propaganda media,277 included the participation of a former Italian diplomat partnered with an ILD front278 and an Italian think tank leader who has attended SCIO and CSHRS pro- paganda activities.279 Days later, a Xinjiang-themed paper co-published by the same think tank titled “Understanding complexity, building peace” and endorsed by, i.a., Beppe Grillo was promoted on social media by Petrocelli, who noted that that the “political and social situation in Xinjiang” is far more complex than how it is portrayed by the “sensationalism of the Western generalist press”.280 Partners and interlocutors of influence agencies across multiple systems, from CCPIT to the Propaganda Depart- ment’s ‘human-rights’ fronts, once again including actors covered in this study, had thus been mobilised to try and counter exposure of the CCP’s repression in Xinji- ang province with positive, propaganda-aligned accounts, implanted in the narrative mainstream through the endorsement of a high-ranking Italian public official.281 The party-state’s attempts to trick its noted critics into legitimising its influence work un- der cover of ‘middle-ground’, ‘win-win’ concepts continued at the time of writing: an event planned for late November 2021, titled “Foreign Investment and International- isation: a strategy for Italy”, organised by an Italian international-relations think tank, was scheduled to include the participation of Senator Adolfo Urso, the President of the Joint Parliamentary Committee for the Security of the Republic, and the CEO of ZTE Italy.282 The presence of the head of the same committee that in 2019 unanim- ously recommended considering the exclusion of PRC technology companies from 5G development in Italy, explicitly referring to ZTE, at an invested-themed event would allow one of the state-controlled companies targeted by such an exclusion to present itself as an acceptable partner, notwithstanding the national security concerns on its involvement in European infrastructure.283
277See p. 52.
278See p. 13.
279“Cina: una realtà differente”, China Communication Academy; “18 Maggio 2021 | Conferenza online “Cina: una realtà differente””, CeSEM, 12th May 2021. On the Centro Studi Eurasia and Mediterraneo (CeSEM)’s vice president Stefano Vernole, see “Organigramma”, CeSEM, 11th June 2021; “Stefano Vernole”, LinkedIn, 11th June 2021. On his links to far-right, antisemitic groups, see “Mr. Stefano Vernole”, CSHRS, 11th Sept. 2015; Cristina Cucciniello, “Ex fascisti e a processo per truffa: chi c’è nel gruppo del ministero per i rapporti Italia-Cina” (23rd Apr. 2019); “Neofascismo e Islam ovvero le amicizie pericolose”, Gnosis 4 (2005); Alexander Reid Ross, “Meet ‘Leftist’ Grayzone’s New Neo-fascist Allies in Denying China’s Genocide of Uyghurs”, Haaretz, 27th July 2021.
280“Xinjiang: understanding complexity, building peace”, Eurispes and Istituto Diplomatico Internazionale
and CeSEM; Vito Petrocelli, “Capire la complessità…”, Twitter, 31st May 2021.
281CCP attempts to mainstream its denialist narrative on Xinjiang has similarly benefited from recent visits to the region by Michele Geraci, former undersecretary of state at the Italian Ministry of Economic Development (“Vice Foreign Minister Xie Feng: Whoever Heard of Such a Genocide in the World!”, MFA, 15th May 2021; “Is China really involved in genocide? What I saw in Xinjiang”, michelegeraci.com, 23rd July 2021).
282“Investimenti esteri e internazionalizzazione: una strategia per l’Italia”, CeSI.
283“Relazione sulle politiche e gli strumenti per la protezione cibernetica e la sicurezza informatica, a tutela dei cittadini, delle istituzioni, delle infrastrutture critiche e delle imprese di interesse strategico
Repeatedly involving, but going beyond, the handful of intermediaries analysed in the case studies above, new episodes continue to illustrate mechanisms sketched in this paper. Time and again, agencies across the CCP’s influence apparatus leverage fronts, platforms and ‘foreign friends’ to coopt their way into target countries’ opinion and policy-making élites, with each new legitimisation by an unwitting critical ‘frenemy’ further embedding CCP narratives in neutral, default, common-sense policy options. Knowledge asymmetry vis-à-vis CCP influence agencies makes targeted political él- ites easy prey for operations that allow an expansionist totalitarian power to hijack the mainstream of democratic societies.
nazionale”, Comitato parlamentare per la sicurezza della repubblica, 12th Dec. 2019. Cf. the Czech cyber- security agency’s warning on ZTE equipment (Hála & Lulu, op. cit.).
5 Addressing knowledge asymmetry: Policy recommend- ations
By coopting often unwitting politicians as proxies or endorsers of CCP policy, in- fluence operations interfere with Italy’s democratic political process. CCP influence work blurs the lines between legitimate diplomatic, trade or cultural exchanges and ef- forts to capture foreign élites, making policy-makers unable to understand the nature of their interlocutors and keeping the public unaware of the interactions between its representatives and a foreign power. The asymmetry in mutual knowledge between CCP influence agencies and Italian decision-makers not only threatens the integrity of the democratic system as a whole, but also that of individual politicians targeted by organs of an unfamiliar totalitarian apparatus, often behind layers of fronts and intermediaries.
Decision-making informed by up-to-date empirical research on China’s politics and the CCP’s power projection through political influence operations can refocus ex- changes with PRC counterparts on legitimate exchanges, recognising influence agen- cies, their operations and propaganda memes as detrimental to a balanced relation- ship. Providing crucial information to political personalities and government officials across levels of administration can provide insights on and an understanding of CCP- controlled agencies, their goals and tactics, and serve as input to policy-making pro- cesses. This imperative should transcend partisan divisions: democratic politics is in- compatible with cooption into operations that advance the global interests of a to- talitarian power and deflect scrutiny of its repressive governance model. Those who believe in Italy as a democratic, independent global actor should understand and ad- dress external influence operations.
Beyond the policy-making élite, the public has a right to know if and to what extent its representatives are being coopted by a foreign political party that is a direct per- petrator of mass crimes against humanity in its controlled territory and increasingly seeks to interfere in democratic processes abroad, often undermining constitution- ally sanctioned values and principles. Principles of transparency and accountability demand parliamentary scrutiny and disclosure of exchanges with PRC counterparts. Experience elsewhere has shown that transparency can degrade or thwart influence operations, exposing to the public interactions CCP influence agencies would rather keep under wraps. Italy’s media, academia and think tanks have a role to play: interac- tions discussed in this paper and previous literature, otherwise largely unreported or underresearched, could serve as an invitation to further coverage of exchanges with CCP-controlled agencies.
The measures sketched below can help policy-makers reclaim their ability to craft a relationship with China based on Italy’s interest, rather than a projection of the CCP’s own. Only an understanding of the CCP and its influence operations can let the public and its representatives expose and scrutinise them and break the vicious circle of knowledge asymmetry and political interference.
5.1 A cordon sanitaire around CCP influence agencies
• Government bodies at all levels, politicians and political parties should avoid interactions, such as entering into agreements with, participation in or en- dorsement of their events or platforms, with CCP influence agencies, such as the ones discussed in this study, among which the ILD, the CPAFFC, CCPIT, propaganda and united front organs stand out for their operations targeting Italian politics. The activities of these agencies and their fronts by-pass norms that require accountability of state-to-state relationships, disguising the party- state’s activities through “people-to-people”, “cultural”, “non-government” or other labels. Instead, diplomatic, trade, cultural and other exchanges should take place through the appropriate channels, as in relationships with other foreign states.
• Government bodies should reject the hijacking of exchanges, such as bilateral agreements, for influence activities, even when interacting with legitimate PRC counterparts. Such unacceptable hijacking may involve an overt propagandistic presentation (e.g., “Belt and Road” or other Xiist themes forced into cooperation in healthcare or culture) or the less evident use of interactions to coopt élite fig- ures into instruments of CCP policy. The focus of such exchanges should be on shared goals beneficial to both sides rather than those of one side’s geopolitical agenda (e.g., BRI propaganda, or raising the profile of CCP-linked actors).
• Democratic political parties should avoid allying themselves to the CCP, a to- talitarian party responsible for massive human-rights violations, by becoming partners of party organs. In particular, there is no legitimate reason for parties that hold democratic principles to maintain exchanges with International Li- aison Department (ILD) under the CCP’s Central Committee. Even when os- tensibly ideologically neutral, such exchanges serve the purpose of coopting foreign parties into serving the CCP’s global interests, and are often presented by the CCP side as foreign endorsements of its policies. Politicians who do not want to be seen as endorsers of totalitarianism should instead help shape the relationship with China through the legitimate channels of Italy’s democracy.
5.2 Reclaiming Parliament from totalitarian cooption
• Senators and MPs should avoid participating, as members or attendees, in the activities of parliamentary ‘China friendship’ groups with links to the CCP’s influence agencies, such as the Institute for Chinese Culture or the Italy-China Parliamentary Friendship Association. Even those with CCP-critical views un- wittingly endorse CCP propaganda when legitimising platforms linked to the ILD and other influence organs.
• Senators and MPs should decline invitations from CCP influence agencies (e.g., the ILD), their fronts and local intermediaries to events in China and elsewhere. Such exchanges, their superficially apolitical themes notwithstanding, seek to coopt foreign politicians as instruments of the CCP’s expansionist policy and its propaganda. Legislators should understand the nature of cooption and propa- ganda events to which they are invited as influence tools, rather than ‘dialogue’ partners. Even attending them to express critical views allows the CCP to pub- licly present its interlocutors as endorsers of its platforms and narratives.
5.3 Resisting local-level influence operations
• Regional, provincial and municipal elected officials and civil servants should ignore approaches by CCP influence agencies such as the CPAFFC or CCPIT, and local lobbyists or ‘Italy-China’ associations acting on behalf of such agen- cies or otherwise linked to them. These agencies, controlled by the PRC party- state at the central level, use these approaches to by-pass the scrutiny of Italy’s government and national public opinion. Outsourcing international contacts to lobbyists and consultants creates serious vulnerabilities to national security and the integrity of a democratic political system accountable to the governed.
• Regional, provincial and municipal authorities should not endorse political influence activities, such as those subsumed under Xi Jinping’s “Belt and Road” geopolitical initiative (e.g., the CPAFFC’s “Belt and Road Local Cooperation Committee”, which has successfully targeted Italian provinces and cities). The adoption of a foreign dictator’s propaganda slogans is below the dignity of a free country. Exchanges with partners in China should instead be conducted within a local administration’s competencies and in pursuit of their constitu- ents’ interests.
5.4 Knowledge to protect the political integrity of influence tar- gets
• Relevant parliamentary committees, such as the Permanent Committee for the Security of the Republic (Comitato parlamentare per la sicurezza della repub- blica, COPASIR) and both chambers’ Foreign Affairs Committees should exert oversight by conducting a review of the findings in this brief and holding reg- ular hearings on authoritarian influence operations with experts and other stakeholders from Italy and its allies to allow for the prompt identification of new threats and adequate responses to CCP influence agencies’ evolving tactics. Recent hearings, findings and actions on this topic at the European Parliament’s Special Committee on Foreign Interference in all Democratic Processes in the European Union, including Disinformation, may serve as a guide for further insight and subsequent action.
• Senators and MPs should be regularly briefed, in particular with background- ers at the beginning of new legislatures, on the goals, tactics and agencies of CCP influence. The results of empirical, up-to-date, policy relevant research on specific CCP agencies and their influence activities, as in the present study, should inform parliamentary debate. Such information can help potential tar- gets of influence operations recognise the tactics of influence agencies, e.g., their use of fronts, intermediaries and ostensibly neutral platforms, in order to avoid becoming unwitting instruments hijacked by a totalitarian actor.
• Political parties should brief local party organisations, their elected officials (e.g., city mayors) and membership with information on CCP influence agencies and operations that might target them, as well as on the need to reject Xiist geopolitical vocabulary and narratives in cooperation with PRC partners.
5.5 The public’s right to know: Responding to grey-zone influence activity with transparency and accountability
• Legislators and government officials should be required to declare their inter- actions with foreign entities and related parties, such as membership or other participation in platforms and attendance of meetings and events, in a publicly available register.
• Senators, MPs and local administrators should scrutinise national and local government exchanges with PRC counterparts through parliamentary ques- tions and other institutional oversight mechanisms, in order to bring transpar- ency to interactions vulnerable to hijacking as CCP influence operations. In par- ticular, legislators should review the involvement of Italian government bodies in exchanges bearing the “Belt and Road” or other propagandistic labels, de- manding information on these exchanges including the content of any signed documents.
5.6 Pooled strengths and a democratic consensus for a balanced re- lationship
• Senators and MPs should review and adapt the legislative framework to counter foreign interference, such as that conducted by CCP influence agen- cies, considering the accrued experience and knowledge in allied states in the EU and elsewhere, including findings of the European Parliament’s Special Committee on Foreign Interference in all Democratic Processes in the European Union, as well as Australia’s counter-foreign interference legislation.
• Parties across the political spectrum united by a commitment to Italy’s na- tional interest and the integrity of its political system should build consensus in countering totalitarian influence operations, as well as seek cooperation with like-minded forces acrosss international democratic alliances. Forceful political debate over pressing domestic and EU-wide issues, a component of a healthy democracy, should not become a vulnerability to divide-and-rule tac- tics. Democratic forces across Europe and its allies face a common threat in CCP influence operations and should join forces to address it, however funda- mental their disagreements on other issues. Resisting CCP influence work is a prerequisite to bilateral and multilateral relations on the basis of equality and the defence of the values and economic interests of European states and their democratic allies.
Acknowledgements
The authors would like to gratefully acknowledge discussion and comments on early drafts by Ralph Weber and Andréa Worden. Filip Jirouš, Roman Leuchter and Jan Vlček kindly contributed unpublished research. Responsibility for any errors lies solely with the authors.
Sinopsis is a project implemented by the non-profit association AcaMedia z.ú., in schol- arly collaboration with the Department of Sinology at Charles University in Prague.
The Global Committee for the Rule of Law “Marco Pannella” was set up in 2016 by the late nonviolent civil rights leader Marco Pannella, Ambassador and former Italian Foreign Affairs Minister Giulio Terzi di Sant’Agata, and Maneo Angioli with the aim of tackling the erosion of the rule of law around the world and promoting the full affirmation of human rights worldwide through the recognition of the right to know.
Cover image by Finn Lau and Hong Kong Liberty.
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