Joined: 10-21-2000 Posts: 55,423 |
Could be worse... A Great Fall: Humpty Dumpty Institute Buddies Up to Beijing, House Reps Linked.
Members of Congress Advise Non-Profit HDI, Closely Affiliated With CCP.
China continues its international campaign of influence. This time it’s wrapped up with the New York-based Humpty Dumpty Institute; a non-profit which, according to its mission statement, “engages critical stakeholders through its programs with the U.S. Congress and the United Nations, including organizing visits of Congressional delegations overseas and to the U.N., and through its engagement with business and cultural leaders around the world.”
That’s a really long winded way of saying they’re buddies with China.
HDI has partnered, on a few occasions, with the Beijing-based Taihe Institute —a think tank employing over a dozen current and former members of the CCP and People’s Liberation Army. HDI even mentions a collaborative event with the institute on its website: the First Annual Taihe Civilizations Forum.
…and maybe they shouldn’t have.
“The Taihe Institute was one of three Chinese think tanks behind an August report that deemed the United States a ‘failed country’ for its pandemic response and claimed that COVID-19 leaked from a military base in Maryland,” the Washington Examiner reports.
A military base in Maryland? That’s a far cry from a virology institute in Wuhan.
“The [Humpty Dumpty Institute] was christened with its intentionally ‘memorable’ name in 1998 with the mission of ‘putting the pieces back together’ of broken international relations and finding solutions to humanitarian problems,” the Examiner adds. “The group says it has hosted over 550 members of Congress and staffers for summits with senior United Nations officials, in addition to organizing Congressional delegations to more than 30 countries.”
According to the HDI, more than 30 members of Congress (7 Republicans, 26 Democrats) informally advise the nonprofit on everything from its programs to its international activities.
While HDI has never gone as far as to organize a delegation to China, many members of Congress who serve as advisors were uncomfortable with the groups affiliation with the Taihe Institute; some have begun to distance themselves from the whole affair.
“It comes as a complete surprise to me that I am listed as a member,” says Rep. Andy Harris (R-MD). “I was never notified by the Institute that I was named to the ‘Advisory Board,’ and I have had no interaction with the Institute at all since 2019, when I traveled on one sponsored trip to the Port of Antwerp as a member of the Ports Caucus.”
Harris is looking to have his name removed from the advisory board. Rep. Gus Bilirakis (R-FL) is preparing to do the same.
“It is particularly abhorrent to me to be associated with an organization that has ties to a government widely known to actively support infanticide, engage in forced sterilization, exploit slave labor, and persecute religious minorities and political dissidents,” Bilirakis said in a letter.
Members of Congress need to be more diligent when it comes to vetting organizations who have potential ties to the CCP —national security is at stake.
https://thedrilldown.com/newsroom/a-great-fall-humpty-dumpty-institute-buddies-up-to-beijing-house-reps-linked/
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