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Organizer With Deep CCP Ties Helped Bus Hundreds Into San Francisco To Welcome Chinese Dictator

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An individual with a long history of support for a Chinese Communist Party (CCP) front group arranged for buses to transport “almost 1,000” overseas Chinese to San Francisco to welcome General Secretary Xi Jinping, according to a Daily Caller News Foundation review of multiple Chinese-language media reports.

Lu Qiang, a so-called “Overseas Chinese leader,” helped arrange for 20 buses to transport overseas Chinese from California, New York and other parts of the U.S. to San Francisco to welcome the communist dictator, according to reports from Chinese-language news outlets World Journal and Sing Tao USA. Xi met with President Joe Biden for the first time in a year on the sidelines of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in San Francisco Wednesday.

Lu Qiang said that he used his travel agency to help overseas Chinese participate in the event, according to World Journal. Lu Qiang’s profile on the website of the U.S.-China Restaurant Alliance states that his English name is “Charles” and that he is the president of a tour bus company, Deer USA Inc., which matches the bus company’s business filings.

Lu Qiang also told World Journal that he’d “hired ten uniformed security guards carrying guns with live ammunition primarily in order to maintain order on the scene.”

Approximately 200 students from University of California’s San Diego, Santa Barbara and Los Angeles campuses were among those who participated in welcoming Xi, World Journal reported. Both Sing Tao USA and World Journal reported that “almost 1,000” overseas Chinese participated, yet both went on to cite the actual number of participants as “more than 800.”

No, it is NOT China in the video. It’s is San Francisco when Xi Jinping arrived for the APEC Summit.

But this may be what America looks like in a few decades if American politicians, business leaders, university administrators, etc, keep on appeasing China. pic.twitter.com/GMPXQMUTVB

— Byron Wan (@Byron_Wan) November 15, 2023

Among other positions, Lu Qiang has served as an All-China Federation Of Returned Overseas Chinese (ACFROC) committee member in Shanghai, and held that role during the organization’s 10th and 11th councils between 2015 and 2020, according to its website. In 2015, Chinese state-run media outlet Qiaowang identified Lu Qiang as an ACFROC overseas committee member and photographed him with the chairwoman of ACFROC’s Shanghai office.

ACFROC was established in 1956 and has been identified as a civic organization under the leadership of the CCP.

The U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission also identified ACFROC as part of the CCP’s “United Front,” which China uses “to co-opt and neutralize sources of potential opposition to the policies and authority” of the CCP.

In March 2015, Lu Qiang also served as a Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) overseas representative, Chinese state-run media outlet Qiaowang reported.

“The CPPCC is the place where all the relevant united front actors inside and outside the party come together: party elders, intelligence officers, diplomats, propagandists, military officers and political commissars, united front workers, academics, and businesspeople,” former CIA officer Peter Mattis testified to the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence in May 2019.

In 2018 and 2019, California Democratic Rep. Judy Chu awarded Lu Qiang with certificates of “Congressional Recognition,” Chinese language news outlets AMTV News and iCityNews.com reported.

In February 2023, the DCNF reported that Chu awarded similar certificates to 10 individuals with United Front ties, including Zhang Sujiu and Ma Shurong, who also participated in welcoming Xi to San Francisco, according to Sing Tao USA.

In September 2023, Lu Qiang and Ma Shurong both attended ACFROC’s national meeting in Beijing as overseas Chinese representatives, according to a report from Chinese-language Huarenone.com, which includes photos of the pair.

Lu Qiang and Deer USA Inc. did not respond immediately to the DCNF’s request for comment.

Zhang Sujiu and Ma Shurong could not be reached for comment.