It’s hard to imagine that any country could be so foolish as to allow a dangerous adversary to set up a massive propaganda apparatus within its borders that openly works to seduce its citizens, undermine its institutions, and weaken it into subservience.

Only you don’t have to imagine, because that would be the foolish country that you are living in.  

Over the past few decades, our Washington “elites” have allowed China, the self-declared enemy of the United States, to build a vast network of front groups, Confucius Institutes, and media outlets across the country. More recently, TikTok and other social media have been added to the mix. 

Beijing’s goal, namely, “China wins, America loses,” has never changed. 

Following the normalization of diplomatic relations in 1979, China set creating pro-CCP organizations and subverting existing ones to advance its interests.  

By 1998 there were already an estimated eight thousand such front groups in operation, according to the Cox Commission. The number is surely many times larger today.  

In May 2019, the Chinese Communist Party actually declared a “People’s War” on America.

These China-controlled organizations heavily influence politics in American big cities like New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco, working for the election of China-friendly politicians and then recommending people like Gov. Hochul’s aide Linda Sun for key positions in city and state governments following elections.

They are supported by China-run newspapers, which are widely distributed in America’s major cities, and are used to advance China’s interests.  

Walk down the streets of New York City and other major cities, and you will see the China Daily’s newspaper boxes on every other street corner.

Then there are Confucius Institutes, which began to spring up like toadstools on American campuses in the early 2000s. 

Today there are roughly 60 such indoctrination centers busily impressing upon young American minds that the Tiananmen Massacre never happened, that Tibet has always been a part of China, and that Taiwan can never be independent, although some have changed their name after public exposure.

So what to do about this silent invasion?

Let’s start off by agreeing that the answer can never be censorship of political views. If we try and defeat China’s propaganda machine by adopting China-like censorship methods, we will have defeated ourselves.

The cure, in other words, would be worse than the disease.

The present administration, by pressuring social media companies to censor me and others over COVID, and by creating — and then dissolving — the ill-conceived Disinformation Governance Board, has already crossed the line in this regard.  We need to take a big step back as a nation.

You cannot have a democracy without free speech.

But there is another way to prevent China from destroying us from within. It’s called “strict reciprocity.”

Right now anyone who tried to publish and distribute an uncensored US newspaper in Beijing would be immediately arrested and imprisoned for “spreading propaganda.”

As long as that’s the case, then the newspapers and other media organizations that China and its front organizations operate here should be forced to shut down.

Right now the United States is not allowed to open George Washington Institutes on Chinese college campuses. In fact, we once proposed opening six such institutes to Beijing, only to have the idea immediately shot down. 

As long as this is the case, then the Confucius Institutes and their offspring that have infiltrated American college campuses should be shut down.

Along with protecting freedom of speech, we need to carefully protect freedom of assembly and association. 

Yet strict reciprocity will also help here, by reducing the number of China’s operatives in the United States who help found front groups and regularly liaise with them.

China has an embassy and five consulates in the US, while we only have an embassy and four consulates in China. Strict reciprocity means that we close down China’s consulate in Houston.

China’s huge complement of embassy and consulate personnel, not to mention its large contingent of US-based “journalists,” far outnumber the number of Americans serving in comparable positions in China.  

America often hires local. China never does. 

If we have 25 Americans in our Shenyang consulate, reciprocity means that China will be limited to 25 Chinese in their Chicago consulate. And so on.

Our founders decided that the best cure for propaganda was an open market of ideas. It still is.  

For instance, I defend Tim Walz’ right to argue that China is not an “adversary,” even as I insist that the evidence shows that it is a hostile foreign power bent upon global domination.

But we cannot allow Communist China to abuse rights and protections of the very Constitution that it seeks to destroy.

Steven W. Mosher is the President of the Population Research Institute and a former Commissioner of the Congressional-Executive Commission on Broadcasting to China.