'I love you': Longtime Harris ally has been friends with CCP Group's top executive for more than a decade

FIRST ON FOX: A longtime friend and mentee of Vice President Kamala Harris, a congressional candidate in California, has been friends with a top leader of a CCP front group for more than a decade, according to a Fox News Digital study.

In early 2022, a year before James Chau became president of the China-United States Exchange Foundation (CUSEF), he wrote on Twitter: “Belated best wishes to my friend and sister. [Lateefah Simon] as she builds on her years, it's [sic] service [Akonadi Foundation] to lead Meadow Fund.

“We live in complex times, but also times where competence and compassion matter even more,” he continued. “I look forward to seeing the profound impact of your work.”

Simon, who is currently running for Rep. Barbara Lee's House seat and was a key speaker at the 2024 DNC convention on Harris' behalf, responded, “I love you James. Hong Kong this summer!”

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Lateefah Simon (center), a longtime friend and mentee of Vice President Kamala Harris (right), has been friends with James Chau (left), a CCP group chair, for more than a decade. (Fox News)

“You have full ownership of my heart,” he replied.

In another social media post, Chau posted a photo of what appears to be an art display depicting a tree with dozens of leaves and a caption that reads: “What are you THANK YOU for?” Chau said the tree was “not big enough” and tagged Simon, prompting him to respond with a red heart emoji.

Both Twitter exchanges, as well as several other social media posts by Chau, took place at a time when Chau was already actively working for CUSEF. Chau “joined CUSEF in 2018” and “worked with its founder, the honorable Tung Chee-hwa” before becoming chairman of the group in 2023, according to his CUSEF biography.

Fox News Digital has extensively covered Tung Chee-hwa, who served as vice chairman of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), a key part of the CCP's united front system, which aims to promote the CCP's interests in the country and abroad. .

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Report details how Julia Wilson, a black public relations consultant, received more than $1 million from Chee-hwa's CUSEF to help the Chinese government learn more about black Americans and gain influence with Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) and Black leaders.

“In 2009, the former chief executive of Hong Kong [Tung Chee-hwa] visited me in my office with his team from the Foundation for China-United States Exchanges, and they wanted to know how we got a black president,” said Wilson, whose office is across the street from the White House , to students during a presentation in 2017. “They said, 'We don't know anything about black people.' So can you write us a white paper and share it with us? How did black people gain enough power to elect a black man to power? So they really needed some insight into our history. Who are we ? Who are African Americans? »

Tung Chee-hwa is the vice chairman of the 12th Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC). (YouTube/Screenshot)

CUSEF's most recent annual report, released in July, reveals how the “independent, non-profit, non-governmental foundation” is heavily influenced by the CCP, ranging from advisors and partners to donors. One of CUSEF's main partners is the People's Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries, which was previously described as a “Beijing-based organization tasked with co-opting subnational governments” and seeking to “directly and maliciously influence state and local leaders to promote the PRC’s global agenda,” according to a 2022 report from the Biden administration’s Director of National Intelligence (DNI).

Another partner in the CUSEF annual report is China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, a key part of the CCP apparatus that regularly coordinates with major branches and leaders of the CCP, according to its website. Other partners include top Chinese and American universities such as Princeton, Georgetown, Harvard and Columbia. Sidwell Friends School, the elite boarding school where former President Obama's daughters and President Biden's grandchildren attended, also made the list.

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Several CUSEF donors, including Chinese billionaires, also have ties to the CCP. Wang Jianlin, billionaire chairman of Wanda Group, is a member of the CCP and served in the 17th National Congress of the Communist Party of China. He is also a long-time member of the CPPCC. Bernard Chan, another donor listed in the CUSEF annual report, appears to be the same Bernard Chan who served as a Hong Kong deputy to the National People's Congress of the People's Republic of China, the highest organ of state power in the PCC, for 15 years. .

Several CUSEF board members also have ties to the CCP, including Peter Woo, who is currently a member of the 11th CPPCC Standing Committee. Liu Changle, the founder of China's public broadcaster Phoenix Satellite Television, also has several ties to the CCP, according to the CUSEF website.

Chau, who was previously a presenter at Chinese state broadcaster China Central Television (CCTV), posted several articles about Tung on his X account and interviewed him several times. In 2017, while a contributor to Chinese state-owned CGTN, Chau sat down for an interview with Tung and discussed U.S.-China relations. A year later, he began working with Tung at CUSEF.

BART Board Chair Lateefah Simon speaks during a BART Ambassador press conference Monday, February 10, 2020 in Oakland, California. (Lea Suzuki/The San Francisco Chronicle via Getty Images)

Earlier this summer at the DNC, Simon spoke about his longtime friendship with Harris, including his experience working alongside her in the early 2000s.

“When she sees you, she really sees you,” Simon said in August at the 2024 DNC. “She is the best of us. Having worked with Kamala Harris day in and day out for five years to create programs that helped young people exit the criminal justice system once and for all with good jobs and opportunities, she wanted to get to the root cause of a broken criminal justice system.”

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Chau and Simon met in San Francisco in 2008 while working to fight HIV and have remained friends over the years, particularly through the deaths of her husband and Chau's father, both of whom died within weeks of interval, according to the first segment of a 2020 interview between them, which was part of CUSEF's “The China Current” digital platform. At the end of the interview, which revolved around the pandemic and “inequalities in a health care system” for people of color, Simon said, “I love you very much, Mr. James. Let's talk more. »

A few months later, Chau called Simon “brilliant” in a Twitter post, saying he was “watching this important discussion about black organizing history.” [sic] in Oakland, one of the world's civil rights centers.

In 2019, CUSEF published an article on its website, highlighting how it engaged with Black Americans “in cooperation with the Congressional Black Caucus and other civil society organizations focusing on the issue.” [B]lack of community in the United States”

Fox News Digital reached out to CUSEF, the Simon campaign and the Harris campaign, but received no response.