EXCLUSIVE — Following a Washington Examiner report, the House Oversight Committee launched an investigation into the Biden administration’s partnership with a Chinese Communist Party-linked nonprofit organization that helped manage land adjacent to military sites, according to a letter sent to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Thursday.
The investigation came after the Washington Examiner found that the Nature Conservancy, a U.S.-based environmental nonprofit organization, maintains a Chinese branch where former members of the Chinese government and current affiliates of the CCP hold senior leadership positions. The House Oversight Committee found that the Nature Conservancy is involved in a federal program allowing it to help manage land near 34 military installations, including major bases such as Fort Knox and Camp Pendleton.
The Oversight Committee expressed worry that the Chinese government could compel the Nature Conservancy to provide it with sensitive information about U.S. military sites, a threat it said is “not without precedent.”
“The National Counterintelligence and Security Center cautioned U.S. businesses with a presence in the [People’s Republic of China] that the CCP has legal grounds for ‘accessing and controlling data held by U.S. firms in China … the laws may also compel locally-employed PRC nationals of U.S. firms to assist in PRC intelligence efforts,” says the letter, obtained exclusively by the Washington Examiner.
The letter pointed out that the Government Accountability Office has highlighted the Department of Defense’s shortcomings in addressing the risk of foreign encroachment on federal land.
The Nature Conservancy is partnered with the DOD through its Readiness and Environmental Protection Integration Program, an initiative that exists to combat “encroachment that can limit or restrict military training, testing, and operations” by purchasing easements, which are legal agreements that restrict how land can be used, around military sites. Conservation organizations such as the Nature Conservancy often become involved with these buffer zones to carry out habitat and land preservation operations.
Federal spending records revealed that the Biden and Obama administrations approved tens of millions of dollars in grant funding to the Nature Conservancy for military buffer zone work, including a project near Fort Bragg.
In the initial step of its investigation, the committee requested a staff-level briefing “on security risks and mitigation for REPI partnerships” from the DOD.
The Washington Examiner’s original report identified Ying Wu, the board chairman of the Nature Conservancy’s China branch, as an active consultant for the CCP’s Overseas Chinese Affairs Office. The office conducts espionage and spies on Chinese people living abroad and is part of the United Front Work Department, an entity that works to influence people and organizations outside of China for the benefit of the CCP.
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Other high-level Nature Conservancy staffers with CCP ties include the head of the organization’s China branch, its director of external affairs, and the senior manager of its zero-conversion commodity program, all of who previously served in China’s Ministry of Ecology and Environment. Alumni of China’s Ministry of Science and Technology, the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, the Chinese Academy of Forestry, China’s State Economic and Trade Commission, and the People’s Daily, China’s state-run media conglomerate, were also counted among members of the Nature Conservancy’s China program.
Additionally, according to its website, the Nature Conservancy’s China branch “works closely with the Chinese government” to address matters related to climate change and accepts funding from Alibaba, a Chinese e-commerce giant that has collaborated extensively with the Chinese government. Tencent CEO Ma Huateng, whose company the DOD recently linked to the Chinese military, also sits on the Nature Conservancy China’s board. Huateng served two terms as part of China’s National People’s Congress.
The Nature Conservancy wasn’t the only organization working on military buffer zones that the House Oversight Committee identified as a potential risk. Rio Tinto and Rayonier, a pair of corporations specializing in natural resources, were also found to be participating in the DOD’s REPI program while apparently maintaining offices in China and working with entities affiliated with the CCP.