EXC: Leaked Document Names Mainstream Journalists Taking Pay-For-Play Trips To China

Outlets including The New York Times, Washington Post, Politico, The New Yorker, The Atlantic, NPR, PBS, Newsweek, Time, Foreign Affairs, USA Today, Financial Times, and more...

An exclusive investigation into archived records from a pro-China influence group reveals a years-long propaganda pipeline targeting senior figures at The New York Times, The Washington Post, Politico, NPR and other major outlets. A leaked internal report shows organizers privately celebrated changing how the journalists viewed, wrote about and edited coverage of China.

A years-long Chinese influence operation quietly targeted the people responsible for deciding how Americans understood Communist China.

An investigation by this publication identified at least 26 prominent American journalists, editors and broadcasters brought to China through a delegation program run by the Committee of 100, an organization repeatedly linked to figures and institutions inside the Chinese Communist Party’s United Front. The United Front is China’s military-grade influence network described by U.S. officials as working to “co-opt and neutralize sources of opposition” to the CCP with various tactics including pay-for-play trips.

The targets included managing editors, editorial-page chiefs, bureau leaders, nationally syndicated columnists and influential broadcasters from:

• The New York Times

• The Washington Post

• Politico

• The New Yorker

• The Atlantic

• NPR

• PBS

• WNYC

• Newsweek

• Time

• Foreign Affairs

• USA Today

• Financial Times

The records reveal a deliberate propaganda model: identify the Americans controlling China coverage, bring them through a carefully managed experience inside the country, provide privileged access to Beijing-approved interlocutors and send them back into their newsrooms with friendlier views of China.

Committee of 100 called the participants American “opinion leaders.”

Its records said the program sought to “enhance understanding and improve perceptions of China in the U.S.” Participants were expected to share their experiences with colleagues after returning home and reshape what the organization portrayed as unfairly negative coverage of Beijing.

C100 later promoted survey findings showing that 70 percent of American opinion leaders who visited China reported improved opinions of the country afterward.

Now, a leaked Committee of 100 document obtained by this publication shows how the organization privately measured whether the operation worked.

The report is marked:

“Trip Report (Internal Use)”

It reveals the cost of one delegation, identifies the media figures targeted, records how their views changed and tracks the China coverage they produced after returning to the United States.

C100’s own verdict was explicit:

“The C-100 Leadership Delegation Program has had a visible impact on their understanding and perceptions of China.”

A senior Financial Times editor said he would never again “think or write about China” without reflecting on the trip.

WNYC host Brian Lehrer confirmed that his perception of China changed “in 100 ways.”

A deputy business editor at The New York Times returned with new story ideas and plans to “shape my staff across Asia in some different ways.”

A Chinese academic congratulated the organizers:

“You made the change!”

Here Are the Names

The titles below reflect the participants’ positions at the time of the trips.

2007

• David Brooks, columnist, The New York Times

• Juan Williams, senior political analyst, NPR

• Charles Cook, publisher, The Cook Political Report

2009

• Jill Abramson, managing editor, The New York Times

• John Byrne, executive editor, BusinessWeek

• Clarence Page, columnist and editorial-board member, Chicago Tribune

2010

• Rana Foroohar, deputy editor, Newsweek

• John Gapper, associate editor and columnist, Financial Times

• David Ignatius, associate editor and columnist, The Washington Post

• Tavis Smiley, host, PBS and Public Radio International

• Dean Baquet, former Washington bureau chief of The New York Times (listed on schedule but omitted from the final public roster)

2011

• Eugene Robinson, columnist and associate editor, The Washington Post

• Nicholas Goldberg, editorial-pages editor, Los Angeles Times

• Rekha Basu, columnist, The Des Moines Register

2012

• Clive Crook, senior editor, The Atlantic

• Brian Lehrer, host, WNYC

• Winnie O’Kelley, deputy business editor, The New York Times

• Gary Silverman, U.S. news editor and deputy managing editor, Financial Times

• Jonathan Tepperman, managing editor, Foreign Affairs

2013

• Henry Finder, editorial director, The New Yorker

• John Harris, editor-in-chief, Politico

• Fred Hiatt, editorial-page editor and columnist, The Washington Post

• Adam Kushner, executive editor, National Journal

2014

• Howard Fineman, editorial director, The Huffington Post

• Brian Gallagher, editorial-page editor, USA Today

• Mark Halperin, editor at large, Time

• Ruth Marcus, columnist, The Washington Post

The Leaked Report

The internal report obtained by this publication concerns C100’s November 2012 delegation to Beijing, Shanghai and Hangzhou.

The operation cost approximately $60,000.

It brought five American media figures to China:

• Clive Crook

• Brian Lehrer

• Winnie O’Kelley

• Gary Silverman

• Jonathan Tepperman

The journalists participated in approximately 20 meetings and visits involving Chinese government officials, state media representatives, business executives, academics and policy figures.

They met:

• Cui Tiankai, then a Chinese vice foreign minister

• Cheng Yue, an executive producer at Communist Party-controlled CCTV

• Fu Chengyu, chairman of state-controlled energy giant Sinopec

• Fang Xinghai, a senior Shanghai government financial official

• Wang Huiyao, also identified as Henry Wang, who held positions in United Front organizations

• Representatives of Baidu, Caixin, Tsinghua University and other Chinese institutions

The itinerary also included upscale hotels, regional Chinese cuisine, sightseeing and corporate tours.

Journalists Returned Ready to Reshape Coverage

Winnie O’Kelley was then deputy business editor at The New York Times.

She called the trip “eye opening” politically, economically and culturally, adding that it made her more aware of what she characterized as the Chinese preference for “gray areas” and pragmatism.

She then explained how the experience would influence her work at the newspaper:

“I think that I will do a much better job of editing stories from all cross Asia. I am taking back several story ideas and will shape my staff across Asia in some different ways. I hope to add at least one business reporter in China.”

Gary Silverman, then U.S. news editor and deputy managing editor at the Financial Times, was equally direct:

“I don’t think that I will ever think or write about China in the future without reflecting on what I learned this week.”

WNYC’s Brian Lehrer said the trip improved his understanding of the complexities of Chinese politics and the boundaries of political debate inside the country.

The internal report then states:

“He confirmed that his perception of China changed ‘in 100 ways.’”

Jonathan Tepperman, then managing editor of Foreign Affairs, said:

“My expectations were exceeded in every way. I have a much deeper, more subtle and more nuanced sense of the country and of elite opinion, and made many wonderful contacts I will keep talking to.”

He added:

“I’ve been on many press trips in the past and this was by far the best.”

The operation gave the editor of one of America’s most influential foreign-policy publications a network of handpicked Chinese contacts he intended to continue consulting.

Clive Crook, then a senior editor at The Atlantic, said the program gave him a new conviction that China was a “huge and fascinating story” and that the world was pivoting around the country.

He told the organizers:

“I don’t see how you could do a better job in the time available. Just keep it up!”

The internal report then listed articles Crook published after the trip, including:

• “Why China and the U.S. Can Be Capitalist Comrades”

• “China’s Ghost Towns Won’t Have a Hard Landing”

C100 even documented the change in attitude and then recorded the resulting coverage.

Fudan University professor Shen Dingli offered perhaps the clearest assessment of the operation:

“It is hard to speak on China without being to the country. You made the change!”

That statement captures what C100’s public descriptions attempted to obscure.

The program targeted influential American journalists, controlled their exposure to China and privately celebrated when their perceptions changed.

The Paper Trail Shows This Was an Influence Operation

The leaked internal report was not an outlier.

In 2007, C100 launched an initiative to “enhance understanding and improve perceptions of China in the U.S.” By 2010, it explicitly described the role participants were expected to play after returning:

“We hope that they will share their China experience with their peers to make reporting and coverage of China as balanced and objective as possible.”

C100 controlled the experience it wanted those journalists to share. Delegates stayed at the St. Regis Beijing, visited the Great Wall and Forbidden City, attended a dinner inside the Great Hall of the People, toured the China Tibetology Research Center and received access to senior political figures, including United Front-linked CUSEF founder Tung Chee-hwa.

The organization claimed another success following its 2011 delegation of Washington Post columnist Eugene Robinson, Los Angeles Times editorial-pages editor Nicholas Goldberg and Des Moines Register columnist Rekha Basu:

“This experience has had a visible impact on their understanding of China and their perception of the country’s ongoing development.”

Their responses supplied C100 with evidence of that impact. Robinson called China “the biggest story of our time,”described the trip as “unforgettable” and said he was “already itching to go back.” Goldberg praised the program as “fascinating, fun, informative,” while Basu called it “informative, enjoyable and fun.”

By 2013, C100 was publicly touting the statistic that most clearly exposed the program’s purpose:

“70% reported improved opinions of the country after visitation.”

C100 was not merely counting meetings or measuring whether participants had learned something. It was measuring whether visits to China made influential Americans view the country more favorably.

The organization admitted that it “customizes each delegation’s agenda” while arranging access to senior Chinese officials. It then promoted the journalists’ resulting work. A later fact sheet said the program sought to “dispel erroneous assumptions, sensationalist narratives, and simplistic conclusions” about China, effectively treating critical American coverage as a problem to be corrected through sponsored access.

The cultivation continued after participants returned home. C100 later reconvened former delegates from The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Financial Times, The Atlantic, WNYC and New York Public Radio for another private gathering.

The China Views This Network Produced

The later coverage from several delegation alumni followed a remarkably consistent pattern: portray confrontation with Beijing as reckless, warn against economic separation, and cast tougher U.S. policies as more dangerous than the Chinese conduct prompting them.

David Brooks, who joined C100’s inaugural 2007 delegation, called Trump’s proposed tariffs “the single worst policy idea on the table before us,” dismissing the argument that they were necessary to get tough on China.

Eugene Robinson, a member of the 2011 trip, attacked Trump’s trade war as an “ill-advised gambit” and wrote that Xi Jinping could present himself as the “reasonable adult” in the confrontation.

David Ignatius, who traveled with C100 in 2010, warned that America was “dramatically overestimating China’s capabilities,” characterized growing concern over Beijing as “scare talk,” and argued that decoupling the U.S. economy from China would “backfire.”

John Gapper, another 2010 delegate, later defended allowing Chinese-founded fast-fashion giant Shein to list in London despite intense scrutiny of its supply chains and governance, concluding:

“There is no reason to bar it from London.”

The United Front Connection

The United Front is the CCP’s system for cultivating influential foreigners and using trusted, ostensibly independent voices to advance Beijing’s interests. U.S. government reports describe its objective as the effort to “co-opt and neutralize” potential opposition to the CCP.

C100’s journalist program displayed the core hallmarks of that strategy: targeting elite opinion leaders, offering valuable China access, shaping their experience and encouraging them to influence colleagues after returning home.

The connections are also direct.

A four-month Newsweek investigation identified C100 among approximately 600 American groups it reported were linked to the CCP’s United Front influence system.

Newsweek also reported that Xi Jinping had described C100 as a “friendly organization.”

C100’s own delegation records, however, show its journalists meeting individuals with documented United Front positions.

Tung Chee-hwa, for example, hosted C100’s 2010 journalist delegation.

He served as vice chairman of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, which China officially describes as the body responsible for running the United Front.

Tung also founded the China-United States Exchange Foundation, or CUSEF. Foreign-agent filings later revealed that CUSEF’s American operatives proposed choosing journalists for China trips based on “opportunities for favorable coverage.”

The planned trips were supposed to provide a “fresh and positive look at China’s accomplishments” and cultivate media figures capable of helping “disseminate positive messages.”

The 2012 journalists also met Wang Huiyao.

U.S. government research identified Wang as a standing director of the China Overseas Friendship Association and a vice chairman of the Western Returned Scholars Association, organizations operating within the United Front system.

A major Hoover Institution and Asia Society report separately concluded that the Chinese embassy “targets prominent Chinese Americans through the Committee of 100.”

The report said C100 members described significant pressure from Chinese consular officials to follow Beijing’s political line. It also identified senior C100 figure George Koo as an overseas director of the China Overseas Friendship Association.