Congressman John Moolenaar would appreciate it if the responsible adults of Montgomery County, Maryland and Des Moines, Iowa stopped working with groups working to indoctrinate American children with CCP propaganda.
Moolenaar, chairman of the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party, has written letters to the executive of Montgomery County and to the mayor of Des Moines setting forth his concerns.
The Committee reports (August 18, 2025):
In Montgomery County, 31 students from 12 high schools traveled to China in April through a program sponsored by the China Education Association for International Exchange (CEAIE). Despite presenting itself as a nonprofit, CEAIE is explicitly guided by “Xi Jinping Thought” and operates under direct CCP control.
In Des Moines, the Roosevelt High School gospel choir “Bridges 2 Harmony” took part in a July exchange organized by the Chinese People’s Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries (CPAFFC). The group required students to download WeChat—a CCP-controlled platform that censors political content and harvests personal data—raising serious concerns about surveillance and manipulation.
CPAFFC and similar organizations like CEAIE have been publicly identified by U.S. intelligence agencies as CCP front groups tasked with advancing Beijing’s United Front work, which seeks to co-opt local leaders and neutralize opposition to CCP policies.
From Moolenaar’s letter to Marc Elrich, executive of Montgomery County:
Article 3 of the CEAIE charter indicates that the organization adopts “Marxism-Leninism, Mao Zedong Thought, Deng Xiaoping Theory…and Xi Jinping Thought…as the guiding ideology and action plan,” and integrates Party work into the complete operational and developmental process of the organization. Article 4 emphasizes how CEAIE is subject to the absolute control of the CCP and that it would “adhere to the overall leadership of the Chinese Communist Party.” In pursuit of this mission and mandate, the organization established a party cell within the management to carry out CCP directives. Notably, CEAIE’s English website omits both material elements of the organization’s subordinate relationship to the CCP and its role as the Party’s influence agent.
From the letter to Connie Boesen, mayor of Des Moines:
The U.S. government has found that CPAFFC is “a Beijing-based organization tasked with co-opting subnational governments” and “has sought to directly and malignly influence state and local leaders to promote the PRC’s global agenda.” Consequently, the involvement of CPAFFC in this initiative serves to underscore its purpose as a tool for CCP propaganda and malign influence….
The Select Committee has consistently highlighted the insidious nature of sister-city relations with China and how they advance CCP malign influence, and the sister-city relationship between Des Moines and Shijiazhuang City is disconcerting given how the CCP uses these relationships to promote its own interests.
It shouldn’t take a letter from a congressman to figure this stuff out (assuming the direct recipients and others take the letters to heart). I don’t mean that the local officials and school teachers should have already nailed down every detail confirmed by Moolenaar and the Committee. But it would not be too hard for persons of normal capability engaging in due diligence to learn that CEAIE and CPAFFC feel obliged to do the bidding of the Chinese Communist Party.
If everybody in the U.S. would make it a point to refrain from helping to further the goals of agents of the Chinese Communist Party, much of the American-side assistance—let’s say, usually inadvertent assistance—would end in short order. We wouldn’t have international field trips to learn the highlights of Xi Jinping Thought, and we wouldn’t have pals of the CCP running for vice president of the United States.
A fan
Unfortunately, the U.S. official with the biggest soapbox is not doing all he can to explain the problem. He is not even urging people to stay off TikTok and delete the TikTok app. And, in fact, the White House has just opened its own TikTok account. Like WeChat, TikTok is a CCP-controlled platform.
The passage and reasons for passage of the congressional legislation requiring that ByteDance sell off TikTok to an acceptable U.S. buyer lest the app be banned within the United States have almost receded into the mists. But there’s still the legislatively imposed deadline, and still the need to violate letter and spirit of the legislation in order to repeatedly extend that deadline.
“Asked if he was concerned about privacy or national security, Trump said: ‘I’m really not. I think it’s highly overrated…. I’m a fan of TikTok.’ ” Well. As long as the president is a fan…
