Eliana Johnson writes for the Washington Free Beacon about one American expatriate’s dubious dealings.
A Shanghai-based American expatriate who works hand in glove with the Chinese Communist Party is using a network of American nonprofits to foment and amplify American opposition to artificial intelligence and the data centers that power it in a bid to propel China past the U.S. in the technological arms race.
A report from the Bitcoin Policy Institute reveals that, for the past five years, nonprofit organizations funded by the tech mogul Neville Roy Singham are churning out papers opposing export controls on advanced semiconductors to China, newsletters that quote CCP officials lambasting America’s approach to the technological arms race, and articles characterizing U.S. data centers as fronts in “the new Cold War on China.”
Several lawmakers cited the report when calling on the administration to investigate, including Senate Intelligence Committee chairman Tom Cotton (R., Ark.), who sent a letter to acting attorney general Todd Blanche in mid-June asking for an investigation into “foreign influence efforts targeting the buildout of American AI infrastructure.” House Energy and Commerce Committee chairman Brett Guthrie asked the FBI and the chairmen of the President’s Council of Advisers on Science and Technology to provide information on the influence effort.
“Neville Singham has ties to the Chinese Communist Party so it’s no surprise he’s pushing anti-American policies through fake nonprofits,” Cotton told the Washington Free Beacon. “The Department of Justice should launch a full investigation into this attempt to undermine America’s prosperity.”
A sprawling 2023 New York Times investigation identified Singham, who sold his technology consulting company, Thoughtworks, in 2017 for $785 million, as the source of a “global web of Chinese propaganda.”
The anti-American, pro-China messages emanate from a vast network of nonprofits including Code Pink, led by Singham’s wife, Jodie Evans, the New York City event space The People’s Forum, which helped foment campus unrest in 2024, and a Massachusetts-based think-tank, Tricontinental, where Singham serves as chairman of the international advisory board and where his son, Nate Singham, once served a researcher.
