The United Front – originally meaning a broad communist alliance – was once hailed by Mao as the key to the Communist Party’s triumph in China’s decades-long civil war.
After the war ended in 1949 and the Party began to rule China, the activities of the United Front receded and faded into the background. But in the last decade under Xi Jinping, the United Front has experienced a renaissance of sorts.
Xi’s version of the United Front is broadly in line with previous incarnations: “to build the broadest coalition with all relevant social forces,” according to Mareike Ohlberg, a senior fellow at the German Marshall Fund.
At first glance, the UFWD isn’t shady — it even has a website and reports on many of its activities. But the scope of his work – and its reach – is less clear.
Although much of this work is domestic, Dr Ohlberg said that “the key target that has been identified for United Front work is overseas Chinese”.
Today, UFWD seeks to influence public debate on sensitive issues ranging from Taiwan, which China claims as its territory, to the suppression of ethnic minorities in Tibet and Xinjiang.
It also tries to shape narratives about China in foreign media, target critics of the Chinese government abroad, and co-opt influential Chinese figures from abroad.
“United Front’s work may involve espionage, but (it’s) broader than espionage,” Audrey Wong, an associate professor of politics at the University of Southern California, told the BBC.
“Besides the act of obtaining secret information from a foreign government, the activities of the United Front focus on the broader mobilization of Chinese people abroad,” she said, adding that China is “unique in the scale and scope” of such influence activities.
