A group founded by George H.W. Bush’s son, Neil Bush, is being funded by a firm connected to China’s communist government.
A report showed that the George H.W. Bush Foundation for China-U.S. Relations, which was led by Neil Bush in the past, is bringing in $5 million between 2019 and 2023, given to the group by the China-U.S. Exchange Foundation (or CUSEF), which has links to the Chinese government.
Tax documents from May through Dec. of 2019 show the foundation brought in around $1.2 million in funds.
CUSEF is run by Hong Kong’s former leader, Tung Chee-Hwa. The foundation calls itself “a non-profit and non-governmental group.”
Tung is also a leader of the Beijing-based advisory board that promotes the CCP’s political goals, which is led by a Politburo official who plays a part in China’s “united front” global influence program.
CUSEF’s connections to the Chinese government are widely recorded.
In 2018, for example, Congressman Henry Cuellar (D-TX) along with Congressman Mike McCaul (R-TX) messaged university presidents in their state warning of the CUSEF influence program on campuses, stressing the groups plan “to push China’s agenda, block academic progress, and steal research.”
A year before this, Johns Hopkins’ School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) was hit for accepting money from CUSEF to fund “a new professorship in China Studies and a new research program called the Pacific Initiative,” Foreign Policy said at the time:
“While CUSEF officials say the group is not an agent of the CCP, the foundation has partnered on projects with the PLA and uses the same Washington PR firm that the Chinese Embassy uses.”
In addition, the Jamestown Foundation revealed CUSEF’s connections to the Chinese government in their Sept. 2020 report.
“CUSEF is certainly a major player in the CCP’s apparatus for doing front work in the U.S.,” the conservative group wrote.
In response to this report, a spokesperson for the George H.W. Bush Foundation said their group is “proud” of their funding and defended their connections to China’s government, saying that “we do not buy into that narrative.”
Author: Blake Ambrose
