Major American foundations, collectively controlling tens of billions of dollars’ worth of assets, take it upon themselves annually to support the Chinese government’s environmental and diplomatic goals. Nonprofit organizations such as the Gates Foundation, Ford Foundation, Rockefeller Brothers Fund, Packard Foundation, and the Hewlett Foundation provide both direct and indirect support to the Chinese state in achieving its climate agenda. On the other side of the equation, many of the environmental charities operating in the U.S. and funding domestic activism have leadership and goals closely aligned with the Chinese government.

Policy analysts, such as those at the right-of-center Heritage Foundation, have argued that China’s support of green energy, both domestically and abroad, is part of a broader strategy to “transform its energy resource vulnerabilities into a net advantage.” Heritage Foundation analysts argue that China has “hijacked” the American environmental movement for its own benefit, as China has a significant economic interest in replacing fossil fuels with alternative forms of energy. China is the world’s largest producer of solar panels and has a massive and growing electric vehicle industry. Unlike the U.S., China has relatively small oil and gas reserves.

Energy Foundation China and the CCP

Energy Foundation China, which became independent from the San Francisco-based Energy Foundation in 2019, has emerged as a major funder of American environmental activists. The organization also happens to be largely staffed by former members of the Chinese government.

EFC president and CEO Zou Ji, for instance, previously served as deputy director general of China’s state-run National Center for Climate Change Strategy and International Cooperation and, according to his biography, helped the Chinese government advocate its interests when formulating the Paris Climate Accords. Ji also serves as a special adviser to the China Council for International Cooperation on Environment and Development, an NGO led by Ding Xuexiang, Chinese President Xi Jinping’s de facto second in command, that advises the Chinese government on environmental policy.

Several other CCICED staffers occupy high levels of EFC. Among them are board members Zhang Hongjun, He Kebin, Shenyu Belsky, and Hongpeng Lei. Kebin, who was previously a representative in the Beijing Municipal People’s Congress, was awarded the title of “outstanding member of the [Chinese] communist party” at a celebration marking the 99th anniversary of the CCP in 2020. Hongjun, meanwhile, was an official in China’s National Environmental Protection Agency and served as a high-ranking legislator specializing in environmental law in China’s National People’s Congress.

Other high-ranking EFC employees who previously worked for the Chinese government include Xin Liu, who was a senior official in the Beijing Municipal Environmental Protection Bureau, and Ping He, who worked for the state-run Chinese Academy of Sciences for nearly a decade. 

In addition to being run by CCP members, EFC is directly overseen by the Chinese government as it is “registered with the Beijing Municipal Public Security Bureau and supervised by the National Development and Reform Commission of China,” according to the organization’s website. The NDRC, among its other responsibilities, aids the Chinese military by “undertak[ing] specific tasks of the National Defense Mobilization Committee.”

The American groups funded by EFC, which disbursed nearly $56 million in grants during 2023, have, in turn, pushed the same policies that the Heritage Foundation experts argue are detrimental to the national interest, such as opposition to new oil drilling and the promotion of electric vehicles and solar panels.

The NRDC and RMI

The Natural Resources Defense Council and the Rocky Mountain Institute were two of EFC’s largest grantees, receiving $350,000 and $200,000 from the organization in 2023, respectively. This builds on a multiyear trend of EFC shuffling millions of dollars to these two green activist groups.

RMI, which is “working to accelerate the clean energy transition,” in 2013 partnered with EFC and the Chinese government to produce a report arguing for a transition away from oil and gas and toward an economy more dependent on energy sources where China is dominant. NRDC, meanwhile, has launched a multitude of lawsuits opposing oil drilling, mining projects, oil pipelines, and power plants in the U.S. 

Beyond being funded by a CCP-linked nonprofit organization, NRDC and RMI themselves have internal links to the Chinese government. 

NRDC’s Beijing office, for instance, is “registered under the Beijing Municipal Public Security Bureau and supervised by the National Forestry and Grassland Administration of China,” and a spokesperson for the organization has stated that it advises the Chinese government on how to implement its environmental policies. Similar to EFC, a number of high-level staffers at the NRDC are former members of the Chinese government. Jieqing Zhang, who leads the group’s China program, was previously the deputy director-general of China’s International Cooperation Department, which is part of China’s Ministry of Ecology and Environment. JingJing Qian, a strategic adviser working with the organization, at one point worked for China’s Ministry of Science and Technology, which has been involved in intellectual property theft operations targeted at the U.S. 

RMI’s board of directors includes Wei Ding, a Chinese financier who, before joining the environmentalist organization, was the chairman of the China International Capital Corporation, an investment bank partially owned by the Chinese government. Ting Li, Minhui Gao, Kaidi Guo, Qiyu Liu, and Qian Sun are among other RMI staffers who previously worked for the Chinese government.

RMI and NRDC are two of the largest environmental nonprofit organizations in the U.S., collectively commanding over half a billion dollars in resources. A transition to green energy in the U.S. could benefit China, as the communist nation is dominant in solar, wind, and electric vehicle supply chains while America enjoys an advantage in oil and gas production. 

EFC’s bankrolling of pro-China environmental groups such as RMI and the NRDC is subsidized by American nonprofit organizations pouring money into its coffers.

American philanthropists and Chinese interests

Major charities like the Hewlett, MacArthur, and Packard foundations, for instance, have pumped tens of millions of dollars into EFC since it became independent in 2019. Further tangling the web of nonprofit organizations, the trio of wealthy liberal foundations have also been major benefactors of the NRDC and RMI. 

In addition to funding American groups that critics charge are advancing China’s interests, the EFC works directly with the CCP to advance its energy agenda. EFC’s website states that its goals are to help China improve its transit system, aid the CCP in achieving clean economic growth, promote “China’s ambitious climate vision,” and assist the communist nation in becoming “the world leader in clean energy production, consumption, and investment, by 2030.”

Charities such as the Ford Foundation, Rockefeller Brothers Fund, and the Gates Foundation cut out any intermediaries and opt to assist the Chinese government directly. The Ford Foundation has the most focused grantmaking of the three, providing millions in support to China’s Belt and Road Initiative, a global infrastructure project that critics argue the CCP uses to accrue global influence.

“The Ford Foundation works to help ensure that China’s impacts in the world are equitable,” a spokesman for the charity previously told the Washington Examiner. “The grants referenced help advance this aim by supporting research and knowledge sharing that promote equitable and sustainable investment and development finance practices.”

State-run universities and Chinese government agencies received millions of dollars from the Ford Foundation to support China’s global infrastructure investments.

“The Chinese Communist Party doesn’t primarily use development loans to develop Global South economies,” Michael Sobolik, American Foreign Policy Council senior fellow and author of Countering China’s Great Game, previously told the Washington Examiner. “It leverages them to export authoritarianism and create economic dependency on Beijing. American foundations shouldn’t be furthering those malign objectives.”

The Gates Foundation, led by Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, similarly sent roughly $11.7 million to arms of the Chinese government in 2023. On top of that, the Democratic megadonor’s private philanthropy doled out $2 million to CRRC, a corporation the Department of Defense has determined is under the control of the Chinese military, and $6.7 million to state-run universities. Many of the Chinese universities bankrolled by Gates and other left-of-center American philanthropists have extensive ties to the People’s Liberation Army, conducting research and entering into cooperation agreements with it.

Gates’s charity has been making similar disbursements for years, and Gates himself has long been a proponent of China, saying in January 2023 that “China’s rise” has been “a huge win for the world.”

Gates, joined by other prominent American philanthropists such as Ray Dalio, founded the China Global Philanthropy Institute in 2015 to support Chinese nonprofit organizations in helping their host country “achieve sustainable impact.”

The Rockefeller family has also dipped its toes into supporting China, donating $7.4 million to organizations that are either part of the Chinese government, led by members of the CCP, or engaged in partnerships with China through its primary charitable arm since 2020. Of the grants handed out by the Rockefeller Brothers Fund to Chinese sources, most focused on helping China’s goal of transitioning to low-carbon energy sources. 

Chinese influence in the U.S. isn’t confined to the philanthropic sector. Companies affiliated with the CCP and the PLA have spent tens of millions of dollars lobbying elected officials for policy changes. Chinese nationals with links to state-run intellectual property theft programs are working on government-funded research projects, and America’s top tech firms hire armies of graduates from CCP-controlled universities, at times leading to sensitive technology leaking to Beijing.