Anti-Israel protests & CCP Links: Enter the dragon

The year 2024 would go down as a year of protests in the United States with  universities across the country witnessing students participating in often violent demonstrations against authorities for Israel’s deadly ongoing war against Hamas in Gaza.

The violence took such ugly turns that normal life in the universities was severely disrupted and police forces needed to intervene with often a high hand to arrest the protesters, inviting widespread criticisms.

The protesting students are demanding their institutes divest from companies which have ties with Israel.

Well, this is just one side of the story which unfolds in media and social media for the entire world to witness.

There is another aspect of the movement and it is having a strong connection with the Asian dragon.

The Network Contagion Research Institute (NCRI), a New Jersey-based organization that specializes in researching false rumors and disinformation on the Internet, released a report in May hinting at the probable involvement of a network connected to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) playing a role in pro-Palestine movements which hindered normal life in the universities.

In the report, titled “Contagious Disruption: How CCP Influence and Radical Ideologies Threaten Critical Infrastructure and Campuses Across the United States”, the group said it found ‘involvement of a network linked to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) that funds and supports both alternative anti-establishment media organizations, promotes anti-American narratives, grassroots activist movements, such as, and including, SID4P’.

The report named an organization called ‘Shut It Down for Palestine’ (SID4P) which was behind several pro-Palestine protests across the USA.

The group played a major role in organizing numerous demonstrations, including those on college campuses and protests that have disrupted various public spaces and events.

NCRI found out that the official SID4P Convenors include seven groups: The People’s Forum, ANSWER Coalition (Act Now to Stop War and End Racism), International People’s Assembly (IPA), Al-Awda NY, National Students for Justice in Palestine (NSJP), Palestinian Youth Movement (PYM), and Palestinian American Community Center NJ (PACC), reported The Epoch Times.

An expert even claimed China is probably playing a crucial role in the anti-Israel protests in the USA and even used the Chinese-owned video-sharing platform TikTok to create division on the campuses.

Gordon Chang, a senior fellow at the Gatestone Institute and vocal critic of the Communist Party of China, told Fox Business that the adversary’s actions are an “act of war” as it uses the “curation algorithm of TikTok” to instigate protests.

“We know of the Hamas videos on that platform [TikTok] — 96.5% of them support the terrorist group. And this echoes what China did in 2020,” Chang said.

“In 2020, an intelligence unit of the People’s Liberation Army went to the now closed Houston consulate. They used big data to identify Americans likely to participate in Antifa and Black Lives Matter protests, and then they sent them tailor-made videos on TikTok on how to riot,” he explained.

A recent survey conducted by Reuters-Ipsos showed how China is trying to influence American minds and life.

The survey said forty-six percent of Americans believe the Chinese government utilises TikTok to spy on American public officials.

More Americans (58%) think the Chinese government uses TikTok to influence American public opinion.

The survey and the opinions given by experts clearly show how the Chinese government is slowly encroaching on American life and trying to influence it silently.