By: Mark Glennon*

Juliana Stratton, Illinois’s lieutenant governor and Democratic nominee for U.S. Senate, spent this campaign season lecturing voters on campaign finance reform and keeping dark money out of politics. “I’ll work tirelessly to end the corrupting influence of special interest money in [politics],” she has said, and “I think that we have to end dark money. I think that is really infecting all campaigns at this point.” That message has been central to her political identity.

But that hasn’t stopped her from cashing checks from a man who has been repeatedly honored by his company as an “Outstanding [Chinese] Communist Party Member” and credibly described as an influence peddler for China.

The hypocrisy is brazen, but so is Stratton’s indifference to what are called Chinese “subnational incursions” – Chinese influence or operations inserted directly into American government –the battle against which has been a top federal priority under both the Biden and Trump Administrations. Questions of legality loom as well or, if they don’t, holes in our campaign donation laws are apparent and the spirit of the law is being shattered.

The man is China-born Pin Ni, who has been living in America for some 30 years. Among the positions he holds is president of Wanxiang America and chairman of Karma Automotive, both U.S. subsidiaries of Wanxiang Group, a China-based conglomerate. During the current campaign cycle, Ni has given $52,000 to Stratton’s campaign. Ni has been a prolific political contributor across America, primarily to Democrats but not exclusively.

Those central facts about Ni and how he operates were described in a Washington Free Beacon column last week and multiple earlier articles about other political contributions that have appeared in Newsweek and the Washington Examiner, among others. Here is what they reported:

Based on the facts alleged in those articles, Ni’s CCP allegiance is neither trivial nor a fringe theory. Wanxiang’s own corporate materials from last year state that Ni is a CCP member, and the company has named him an “Outstanding Communist Party Member” fifteen separate times. We can find no indication that he has resigned from the party.

Lu Weiding, who now runs Wanxiang and is Ni’s brother-in-law, has said flatly: “Everyone here is a Communist Party member…. Wanxiang’s hallmark is to promote cadres from among its members and recruit party members from among its cadres.” Xi Jinping himself praised Wanxiang’s founder for a company that “always actively does what our Party committees and governments at all levels advocate.”

CCP members are personally obligated to advance the party and its agenda. Among those obligations, as stated in the party’s constitution, are to be “ready to make any personal sacrifices,” put “the interests of the Party and the people above everything else,” execute the Party’s decisions” and “accept any job and actively fulfill any task assigned them by the Party.”

Is there some quid pro quo attached to Ni’s giving? Decide for yourself based on experience.

According to the Washington Examiner, Ni gave Mikie Sherrill’s (D-NJ) gubernatorial race $60,000 and her political action committee another $5,800. Sherrill refused to vote on the Stop Chinese Fentanyl Act, a bill to cut the flow of lethal, Chinese-manufactured drugs. She also voted against the DETERRENT Act, a bill to curb the CCP’s influence over America’s higher education.

Also from the Examiner, Gov. Katie Hobbs (D-AZ) vetoed legislation that would have banned healthcare and research institutions from using genetic sequencing equipment or software manufactured by entities the Pentagon has designated as “Chinese military companies.” A few weeks later she vetoed another piece of legislation that would have banned the Chinese government from owning land in her state. Then, campaign finance records show that Ni cut a $10,000 check to the Democratic Governors Association of Arizona — one of the primary political committees that was set to provide her with financial support for reelection.

Ni chairs the Chicago chapter of the China General Chamber of Commerce, an organization described by China scholars Larry Diamond and Orville Schell as a “public-facing arm” of Beijing’s united front influence strategy. After a four-month investigation, Newsweek described the organization as being among the Chinese influence groups that are in regular touch with and guided by China’s Communist Party.

Perplexingly, Ni is also on the board of the Illinois Economic Development Corporation (formerly named Intersect Illinois), which recruits companies to expand in Illinois. It’s a public-private partnership originally established by Gov. Bruce Rauner to promote economic development, funded at the time by the private sector. Under Gov. JB Pritzker, the State of Illinois is now also contributing.

Then there’s Gotion. According to the Free Beacon, Ni’s Chicago chapter of the China General Chamber of Commerce added Gotion High-Tech to its board in June, according to archived copies of its website. Gotion’s US subsidiary has been under intense criticism itself for its ties to the Chinese Communisty Party, which we’ve covered extensively here. Gotion axed its plan to construct a factory in Michigan after facing local opposition over its CCP ties, the company opened its Manteno, Illinois facility shortly thereafter, subsidized with $536 million from the State of Illinois.

Stratton has been an outspoken supporter of Gotion’s Illinois project. About it, she said, “This new facility will be a game-changer in our state’s economy, creating new jobs and showing our continued commitment to making Illinois a renewable energy manufacturing powerhouse. We are providing real solutions and new opportunities for our residents to push forward with us. I thank Governor Pritzker for his steadfast leadership for a greener tomorrow.”

How Can this be legal?

Ni’s legal position is murky, mainly because neither he, Stratton nor anybody else has been forthcoming on the facts.

Only U.S .citizens and permanent residents with green cards can make political contributions in America. That much is clear, but we don’t know Ni’s status. It seems unlikely that he obtained US citizenship since that would require giving up his Chinese citizenship — China does not recognize dual citizenship and membership in the CCP requires Chinese citizenship.

Perhaps he has permanent resident status, but that certainly would need some explaining. Members of the CCP and other Communist parties are not admissible to the US and are barred from obtaining citizenship or permanent residency. There are exceptions to that rule and there may be timing issues that matter, such as when he joined the CCP and when he applied for residency status but, again, nobody has provided the facts.

What’s clear, however, is that the law has a sensible general intention: to bar political contributions by non-citizens who are not permanent residents, and to disqualify members of Communist parties from qualifying.

That purpose isn’t being served in Ni’s case and Stratton has shown no sign that she cares.

What Stratton Owes Illinois Voters

Questions for Stratton’s campaign should start with the following: Has it checked Ni’s actual citizenship or permanent resident status? What does Stratten have to say about the documented contradiction between Ni’s CCP membership and U.S. immigration law? Will she return the $52,000 to Ni? And how could she have accepted the money in the first place, given her claimed commitment to campaign finance reform despite extensive reporting that had already been published about Ni?

But that’s just the start.

The real question is indicated by Michael Lucci, founder of State Armor, a watchdog group monitoring Chinese influence operations in America. As quoted in the Free Beacon article, Lucci called accepting Ni’s money “disqualifying,” saying Ni “has a long history of supporting the CCP’s political maneuvers and influence operations in the U.S., generally aligning with and executing party directives.”

“Disqualifying”? You decide whether Stratton’s indifference to federal alarm bells about Chinese influence operations should be disqualifying. Among those warnings is one from the Biden Administration’s National Counterintelligence and Security Center in 2022. It said,

The PRC [People’s Republic of China] may target U.S. state and local leaders early in their careers and seek to use them to advocate for PRC interests should they achieve higher office…. The PRC may also view a U.S. state or localities’ economic or other challenges as a key opportunity to create a dependency, thereby gaining influence…. Leaders at the U.S. state, local, tribal, and territorial levels risk being manipulated to support hidden PRC agendas. PRC influence operations can be deceptive and coercive, with seemingly benign business opportunities or people-to-people exchanges sometimes masking PRC political agendas. Financial incentives may be used to hook U.S. state and local leaders, given their focus on local economic issues.

That indifference to federal warnings is also clear in her enthusiasm for the Gotion project, about which the Pritzker Administration says expressly that it will answer no questions.

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Much of the routine trade and investment between China and America is entirely appropriate and in America’s interest. For example, a Chinese investment in a new apartment building should be welcomed. But inserting the Chinese Communist Party into America’s pay-to-play system and state economic development strategy isn’t just crossing a line. It’s a leap into an abyss of stupidity.

*Mark Glennon is founder of Wirepoints.