The Red Herring: While America Fights Over Gaza, China Advances

Posted on October 25, 2026 by First.One.Through

While Americans argue over Gaza, Beijing is watching Taiwan.

China wants to dominate Asia, control waterways carrying trillions of dollars in commerce, and bring Taiwan under its rule. Standing in its way is potentially the United States.

So as America commits military resources to Middle Eastern conflicts and Americans increasingly question their country’s overseas role, China is pursuing two opportunities: expanding its power abroad and exploiting political divisions inside America.

The Trillion-Dollar Prize

Taiwan produces much of the world’s most advanced semiconductors. According to the Center for Strategic and International Studies, approximately $2.45 trillion in goods passed through the Taiwan Strait in 2022, representing more than one-fifth of global maritime trade.

Bloomberg Economics estimated that a major war involving China and the United States could cost the global economy approximately $10.6 trillion in its first year, equivalent to 9.6% of global GDP. The modeled losses include 6.6% of American GDP and 11% of China’s. A Chinese blockade could reduce global GDP by approximately 5%. The consequences would reach American retirement accounts, employment, manufacturing, automobiles and everyday consumer prices.

Beijing has steadily increased military exercises, maritime patrols and operations around Taiwan and the South China Sea. China seeks the ability to impose its will on Taiwan while limiting American intervention.

China Sees an Opening

On October 7, 2023, Hamas invaded Israel, murdering approximately 1,200 people and taking 251 hostages. The ensuing war drew American aircraft carriers, missile-defense systems, intelligence resources and diplomatic attention into successive confrontations involving Gaza, Lebanon, Iran and the Houthis.

Within weeks, foreign-policy researchers identified the opportunity that Beijing will exploit.

On November 9, 2023, Emil Avdaliani of the Stimson Center published For China and Russia, the Gaza War May Be a Blessing in Disguise. He explained that the wars in Gaza and Ukraine interfered with America’s strategic focus on the Indo-Pacific, giving China greater freedom to maneuver and time to prepare for competition over Taiwan.

He compared the opportunity to the years following September 11, when American attention was consumed by the wars on terrorism. The Gaza conflict also threatened the proposed India–Middle East–Europe Economic Corridor, a potential competitor to China’s Belt and Road Initiative.

Two weeks after the Hamas attack, Ahmed Aboudouh of Chatham House published China’s Approach to the War in Gaza Is Not Anti-Israel. It’s Designed to Contain the US.

Aboudouh described Beijing’s posture as anti-Western neutrality. China avoided condemning Hamas’s atrocities while criticizing Israel and portraying America as a destabilizing force. Beijing was using sympathy for Palestinians to undermine American credibility, cultivate support among developing countries and strengthen its diplomatic position on Taiwan and Xinjiang.

Beijing also maintains an enormous economic relationship with Iran.

In April 2026, the U.S. Treasury Department reported that China purchased approximately 90% of Iran’s oil exports. The U.S.–China Economic and Security Review Commission estimated that Chinese purchases generated approximately $31.2 billion in Iranian oil revenue in 2025.

Those revenues support the Iranian government, whose military establishment finances and arms Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis. Iran’s regional activities repeatedly demand American military resources and diplomatic attention.

China receives Iranian oil while Tehran’s confrontations with America complicate Washington’s ability to concentrate on Asia.

China’s American Information Campaign

China’s efforts to exploit the conflict have also reached American audiences.

In June 2024, Google’s Threat Analysis Group documented DRAGONBRIDGE, also known as Spamouflage, a vast online influence operation linked to the People’s Republic of China.

The network distributed videos, fabricated news-style broadcasts and social-media comments attacking American democracy and exploiting domestic controversies.

One of its targets was the American campus protests over Gaza.

Beginning in May 2024, Chinese-linked accounts circulated English-language material portraying American police actions against pro-Palestinian demonstrators as evidence of Western hypocrisy. The messaging contrasted the treatment of campus protesters with American support for demonstrations in Hong Kong.

The same network criticized American involvement in Ukraine and depicted American democracy as dysfunctional.

Google disrupted more than 10,000 instances of DRAGONBRIDGE activity across its platforms in the first quarter of 2024. During the first nine months of 2024, Google also terminated more than 22,000 YouTube channels linked to Chinese coordinated influence operations.

Although investigators found limited genuine audience engagement, the volume of fabricated content demonstrated Beijing’s capacity to manufacture political messaging and distribute it across thousands of accounts.

Follow the Money

An August 2023 New York Times investigation uncovered a sprawling financial network associated with Neville Roy Singham, an American technology entrepreneur living in Shanghai, with approximately $278 million in reported financial flows attributed to his broader network. Major organizations associated with the network include the People’s Forum, ANSWER Coalition, International People’s Assembly, CODEPINK and affiliated activist and media operations. These organizations have helped organize anti-Israel demonstrations, promote political campaigns and advance positions frequently aligned with Chinese Communist Party interests. The Times also documented Singham’s financial and operational connections to Chinese propaganda organizations. A July 2025 George Washington University study examined overlapping financial relationships, organizational cooperation and ideological alignment involving Singham-linked organizations and groups associated with Shut It Down for Palestine. The $278 million represents broader network financial flows rather than verified direct funding of each organization.

The People’s Forum’s organizing activities became visible immediately after October 7. It co-organized a Times Square demonstration the following day, helped mobilize the November 4 march in Washington, and joined the nationwide Shut It Down for Palestine campaign. On April 29, 2024, more than 100 activists, including Columbia protesters, reportedly gathered at its Manhattan headquarters, where executive director Manolo De Los Santos urged them to “give Joe Biden a hot summer.” These events demonstrate the organization’s participation in street demonstrations and campus-related organizing, alongside a much broader student-led protest movement.

Beyond activist organizations, Chinese government agencies, companies and associated entities have developed financial relationships with American universities, policy institutions, media organizations and Washington lobbying firms.

U.S. Department of Education disclosures identify approximately $4.9 billion in Chinese-source gifts and contracts across roughly 8,000 transactions, making China the second-largest reported foreign funding source. These relationships reach institutions responsible for educating future American leaders and developing advanced technologies. The funding includes research, education and commercial arrangements, while its scale raises questions about academic independence, research security and foreign influence.

Chinese financial relationships have also reached American think tanks and policy institutes, where donor disclosures are less comprehensive and researchers help shape congressional testimony, national security debates and foreign-policy recommendations.

China’s presence in Washington is more directly measurable. According to OpenSecrets, Chinese government and other China-related foreign principals accounted for approximately $563 million in registered foreign-agent spending from 2016 through 2025, including approximately $453 million attributed to the Chinese government. Much of this money supported Chinese state-media operations, while other expenditures financed lobbying and public relations. U.S. Justice Department records, for example, document the Chinese Embassy’s engagement of Squire Patton Boggs to advise on congressional legislation, defense appropriations and other matters before Congress. Chinese-owned companies have separately spent millions lobbying over trade, technology restrictions and federal regulation.

From Gaza to Taiwan: The Same Organizations

CODEPINK‘s activism extends far beyond opposition to Israel. Its China Is Not Our Enemy campaign opposes American military preparations in Asia and criticizes U.S. support for Taiwan. Following Nancy Pelosi’s 2022 visit, CODEPINK characterized the trip as a dangerous escalation. Its Reject the US Militarism in the Pacific campaign challenges American military infrastructure and partnerships involving Japan, South Korea, the Philippines, Guam and Australia.

The ANSWER Coalition similarly opposes American military expansion in the Pacific, including military bases and exercises involving Okinawa and South Korea. Both organizations describe their positions as opposition to militarization and overseas intervention.

The overlap is striking. Organizations mobilizing against American support for Israel also oppose military commitments and partnerships central to American deterrence in Asia. Beijing has its own reasons for welcoming those positions: weakening America’s regional alliances would make coercion of Taiwan easier. The alignment of these policy positions is documented; whether Chinese funding or direction caused them is a separate question.

The Real Strategic Contest

American deterrence around Taiwan depends on naval forces, regional bases, military cooperation with Japan and the Philippines, defense spending and the political willingness to confront Chinese coercion.

China’s military buildup raises the cost of American intervention around Taiwan. Its influence operations exploit the political divisions that could make such intervention harder to sustain. Meanwhile, conflicts involving Iran and its proxies continue to consume American resources and attention.

A Taiwan war could destroy $10.6 trillion in global economic output in its first year. China’s disclosed financial relationships with American institutions and media operations amount to billions of dollars across multiple years, much of it spent on activities unrelated to political influence. Even a relatively small, effective influence campaign could matter enormously if it altered America’s willingness to defend Taiwan.

For a few billion dollars spent influencing Americans to be anti-Israel and pro-Iran, China is targeting several TRILLIONS of dollars in Asia.

Sources

Stimson Center — For China and Russia, the Gaza War May Be a Blessing in Disguise, November 2023.
Chatham House — China’s Approach to the War in Gaza Is Not Anti-Israel. It’s Designed to Contain the US, October 2023.
U.S. Treasury Department, April 2026, reporting on China’s purchases of Iranian oil.
U.S.–China Economic and Security Review Commission, March 2026, research on Iranian oil revenues.
Google Threat Analysis Group, June 2024, research on DRAGONBRIDGE.
Google congressional testimony, 2024, coordinated Chinese influence operations.
George Washington University Program on Extremism — CCP Influence in U.S. Pro-Palestinian Activism, July 2025.
The New York Times — A Global Web of Chinese Propaganda Leads to a U.S. Tech Mogul, August 2023.
CODEPINK — China Is Not Our Enemy.
CODEPINK — Reject the US Militarism in the Pacific.
ANSWER Coalition — Islanders Unite to Resist a New Pacific War.
Center for Strategic and International Studies — Taiwan Strait maritime trade research.
Bloomberg Economics — The $10 Trillion Fight: Modeling a US-China War Over Taiwan, February 2026.
Congressional Research Service — Section 117 of the Higher Education Act: Reporting of Foreign Gifts and Contracts, March 2026.
OpenSecrets — Foreign Lobby Watch, 2016–2025.
U.S. Department of Justice — FARA semiannual reports, including Squire Patton Boggs’ representation of the Chinese Embassy.
Harvard/University of Connecticut Crowd Counting Consortium — U.S. protest and campus encampment data, 2023–2024.
The People’s Forum — October 2023 statements and protest mobilization announcements.
Reporting on the People’s Forum’s April 29, 2024 organizing meeting in Manhattan.

Preview of July 9, 2025 House Education Committee Session On University Antisemitism: Foreign Funding

Posted on July 7, 2025 by First.One.Through

On July 9, 2025, the House Education & Workforce Taskforce Committee will hold a session on “Antisemitism in Higher Education: Examining the Role of Faculty, Funding, and Ideology.” This is another meeting about ongoing Jew hatred on American campuses and the factors that drive it.

Rep. Tim Walberg (R-MI), the chairman of the 45-person committee, said the “hearing will focus on the underlying factors instigating antisemitic upheaval and hatred on campus. Until these factors — such as foreign funding and antisemitic student and faculty groups — are addressed, antisemitism will persist on college campuses. Our committee is building on its promise to protect Jewish students and faculty while many university leaders refuse to hold agitators of this bigotry, hatred, and discrimination accountable.”

This Republican-led hearing will have the following witnesses:

Dr. Robert M. Groves, Interim President, Georgetown University
Dr. Félix V. Matos Rodríguez, Chancellor, The City University of New York
Dr. Rich Lyons, Chancellor, University of California, Berkeley

Here we will review foreign funding of universities.

Foreign Funding

Americans for Public Trust (APT) produced a report in March 2025 focused on foreign funding to universities. It found that “$60 billion in foreign gifts and contracts have been funneled into American colleges and universities over decades.” In particular, $20 billion went to ten elite schools with transparency laws being “lightly enforced” leading many universities to not report. Alarmingly, “many of the countries that top the list of foreign gifts… are long-standing adversaries and enemies of the U.S..”

The American Enterprise Institute (AEI) noted in February 2025 that “a key culprit [for so much foreign money coming into universities] is universities’ failure to comply with the provisions of Section 117 of the Higher Education Act, which requires US institutions of higher education to report income from foreign countries valued at over $250,000, such as gifts or research contracts. But American universities have failed to report billions in foreign funding, which drove the first Trump administration to launch several investigations into Section 117 noncompliance.”

The databases from the Education Department Office of Federal Student Aid Section 117 compliance can be found here.

AEI found “US schools reported over $4 billion in Qatari funding, making it easily the largest foreign donor to American universities. Looking at Qatari money together with China and Saudi Arabia further highlights how entangled these sources are with US higher education—seven of the universities investigated under Section 117 received most of their foreign funding from these three countries alone.”

APT reported that several “foreign adversaries” have donated to U.S. education, with “China, Russia, Iran, Qatar, Venezuela and Yemen have collectively syphoned billions into American schools.”

APT raised a red flag on the number of university researchers who have been arrested for illegally collaborating with China, including the chair of Harvard’s chemistry department. AEI was alarmed by the association of these foreign funders to universities doing work in artificial intelligence (AI). The COVID pandemic and risks from AI to society are reasons enough to clamp down on this funding, before even approaching foreign money stoking antisemitism.

University Antisemitism

The Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism and Policy (ISGAP) produced a 135-page report in June 2025 called “FOREIGN INFILTRATION: GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY, QATAR, AND THE MUSLIM BROTHERHOOD.” The study concluded that Qatar’s huge donations – to Georgetown in particular:

“influenced… the academic environment, research priorities, and faculty recruitment, particularly within the School of Foreign Service (SFS), the Center for Contemporary Arab Studies (CCAS), and the Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding (ACMCU).”
created centers that mainstreamed “political Islam, minimizing the threat of Islamist extremism, and advancing anti-Israel narratives.”

Georgetown, based in the nation’s capital of Washington, D.C., thereby produced a large cohort of alumni who “occupy prominent positions in the U.S. State Department, intelligence
agencies, media, and NGOs, effectively introducing and reinforcing these
ideological perspectives within American foreign policy-making processes.” It has also led to a spike of anti-Jewish actions on campus.

The ISGAP report specifically called out Qatar, “from being a major funder of the Muslim
Brotherhood’s global operations to providing resources to Hamas—the Palestinian
branch of the Muslim Brotherhood—and harboring the remnants of its leadership,
Qatar has consistently positioned itself as both an ideological incubator and
logistical facilitator of Islamist extremism. The Muslim Brotherhood is committed
to destroying democracies, including the United States and Israel, and to replacing
them with a distorted version of an Islamist caliphate.”

The funding works two ways – monies flowing onto American campuses as well as building campuses of American schools in foreign countries. Six American universities maintain campuses in Doha’s Education City: Georgetown, Carnegie Mellon, Virginia Commonwealth, Cornell, Northwestern, and Texas A&M, although Texas A&M is scheduled to close in 2028 (bolded countries in top 10 receiving foreign money). The state-run Qatar Foundation finances the campuses and personnel in Doha.

There have been numerous studies which analyze whether funding from foreign institutions – and those from countries which might be viewed as hostile to the U.S. – have an increased level of anti-American and antisemitic activity. A comprehensive statistical study showed “consistently strong evidence that institutions that received Section 117 funding from OIC (Organisation of Islamic Cooperation) member countries or authoritarian countries had much higher levels of antisemitic/anti-Zionist activity.” Interestingly – and counter to the argument of liberals – the study added “that there is minimal evidence here that foreign funding, per se, is associated with erosion of liberal democratic norms around campus speech.”

The Jew hatred was not confined to the universities’ campuses. In additional analyses, the study found “that as campus antisemitism goes up or down, so does antisemitism in the surrounding communities.”

While the study cautioned about drawing direct conclusions about the direction of antisemitism (perhaps society has caused antisemitism to spike in schools rather than vice versa), it was clear with its conclusion:

“The present research highlights two troubling possibilities that deserve further investigation. The first is that receipt of Section 117 funding from foreign sources, especially authoritarian ones, has contributed to these [antisemitic] developments. The second is that providing massive financial support to campuses with ascendant illiberalism serves the interests of foreign actors hostile to the U.S. in particular or liberal democracy in general.”

These are profound concerns not just for American Jews but America.

Biased Think Tank Fig Leaves: Brookings Institute

There are a number of “think tanks” that offer opinions and research papers about a variety of issues, including antisemitism at universities and the impact from foreign funding. Many are deeply conflicted. For example, the Brookings Institute had a center in Doha for 14 years, until it was closed in 2021. It often works in partnership with Georgetown University which takes significant money from Qatar. It is therefore not surprising that Brookings publishes defensive reports on Qatar which paint the sponsor of terrorist groups as a partner for the United States against bad actors in the Middle East, rather than a fountain of funding for evil: “a window may still be apparent whereby Qatari policymakers would welcome inventive U.S. suggestions as to ways that they could make themselves useful to American counterparts, all in the name of firming up their U.S. partnership in the face of hostile local states.”

Considering the Brookings-Qatar-Georgetown dynamic, it is not surprising that the group published a study that the Trump administration’s efforts to root out antisemitism at universities was really about Trump attacking his critics, not combatting Jew hatred.

Recommendations

AEI recommended that the government “move the enforcement of Section 117 out of the Office of Federal Student Aid (the office that gave us the FAFSA debacle) and return it to the Office of the General Counsel, which is better equipped to investigate and address non-compliance with federal statutes. The Education Department should also audit far more universities to ensure adequate reporting of foreign funds. Finally, department investigators should work closely with their counterparts in the Department of Justice and FBI to tackle this issue—especially when foreign funding could be linked to influence campaigns, technological espionage, or other efforts to undermine national security.”

The Senate should pass the DETERRENT Act (Defending Education Transparency and Ending Rogue Regimes Engaging in Nefarious Transactions Act) which seeks greater transparency of foreign funding in universities, especially from a “foreign country of concern.” It was passed by the House on March 27, 2025 with a vote of 241 to 169 (with 20 abstentions). Nearly 97% of Republicans voted for the measure while fewer than 15% of Democrats voted for the bill. It is before the Senate as S. 1296, sponsored by Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC) with 13 Republican co-sponsors.

Conclusion

Billions of dollars are seeping into American universities from countries which are undermining American society and values. Qatar and China are particular actors which deserve heightened scrutiny regarding their potential nefarious efforts in artificial intelligence, biochemical research and promoting antisemitism.

ACTION ITEM

Call Rep. Tim Walberg’s office at (202) 225-6276 to thank him for holding the session on this important matter.

Call your senator to support the DETERRENT Act and call Sen. Thom Tillis’s office at (202) 224-6342 to thank him for sponsoring the bill.

A Fever Called Antisemitism Hatched In Schools (June 2025)

Ignoring Columbia’s – And The Education Industry’s – Systemic Antisemitism (July 2024)

The Problem With Antisemitism On College Campuses Stems From Where Jews And Arabs Focused Their Donations (October 2023)

Saudi Students In United States (September 2023)

Hamas And Harvard Proudly Declare Their Anti-Semitism And Anti-Zionism (May 2022)

Follow the Money: Democrats and the Education Industry (November 2020)

On Accepting and Rejecting Donations (September 2019)

Meme Stocks And Hamas

Posted on May 19, 2024 by First.One.Through

Gamestop is a publicly-traded company with very poor prospects. Technology has changed the way people buy and play games, and retail stores are hurting all over the United States. The company has swapped management, closed stores and let people go but the business continues to flounder.

But not its stock price. As covered in the movie Dumb Money, masses of people decided to wage a war against professional capitalists and kept pushing the stock higher. Ignoring all fundamental principles, the trading horde opted for another capitalist principle, that things are worth what people are willing to pay for them. Enough of them bound together to run the stock and push professional stock traders to capitulation.

*Gamestop stock trading last five years showing dramatic spikes*

The same phenomenon is happening with Gaza, the terrorist enclave ruled by the jihadi antisemitic genocidal group Hamas.

People are protesting on college campuses and the streets to protect Hamas from the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF). Masses have willfully opted to ignore basic morality in the face of heinous barbarism committed by the group which has promised to repeat its barbarity.

Like “Hello Kitty” who directs the masses to buy a meme stock, the Iranian tools of CAIR, Democratic Socialists of America, Students for Justice in Palestine and others, rally mobs to shut their blind moral eyes, and side with an antisemitic death cult.

They have turned the game on itself using its own rules. Capitalism both believes in fundamental values as well as market pricing, just as western society values liberalism as well as free speech and assembly. In the frenetic broadcast social media world, clicks and retweets are empowering the latter to overwhelm normalcy.

Passions are no longer tethered to truth and decency. And this is BEFORE artificial intelligence (AI) gets mainstreamed which will usher a future in which people will be unable to differentiate the real from the manufactured.

We are entering a very dangerous state for mankind, in which bots, AI and the masses actually have the power to tear down society without conventional weapons. Depravity coupled with technology will breed anarchy, particularly in societies where trust has been trashed, as many have been in the shadow of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The current axis of evil – China-Russia-Iran – are using anarchists on these shores to launch an insidious revolution, and our society just scrolls through X in bewilderment, rather than take actions to protect our values and our country.

In a world where facts are extraneous, we are only left with a clash of emotions.
Will we pass judgment solely on which party seems the most sympathetic because they feel the most injured? Does that foretell a future of balms for the pain, rather than solutions for the problems?
We are carrying our emotions across the threshold to deflower our intelligence. That is a marriage that will end poorly for civilization.

– EYES WIDE SHUT, by First One Through, November 2016

Meme Stocks And Hamas

Posted on May 14, 2024 by First.One.Through

The same phenomenon is happening with Gaza, the terrorist enclave ruled by the jihadi antisemitic genocidal group Hamas.

In a world where facts are extraneous, we are only left with a clash of emotions.

Will we pass judgment solely on which party seems the most sympathetic because they feel the most injured? Does that foretell a future of balms for the pain, rather than solutions for the problems?

We are carrying our emotions across the threshold to deflower our intelligence. That is a marriage that will end poorly for civilization.

EYES WIDE SHUT, by First One Through, November 2016