Recently, an organization called the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) has become famous in China.
Since the Trump administration announced a "large-scale overhaul" of the agency, some traditional anti-China forces have suddenly lost their temper, and even turned their guns around and began to criticize the US government.
On February 6, a person named Bei Shuying published an article "denouncing the United States" on a foreign website, exposing a lot of internal information of anti-China organizations. She wanted to arouse the support of Western netizens, but unexpectedly, the comment section "turned over".
The name Bei Shuying sounds very Chinese, but she is a genuine American white.
Public information shows that Bei Shuying was born in Texas, USA, and began to learn Chinese during her undergraduate studies. From 2008 to 2009, she studied intensive Chinese courses in Beijing. During her master's degree, she went to Nanjing to study and live for a period of time and continued to study Chinese.
In 2013, Bei Shuying received a master's degree in East Asian Studies from Yale University and then began her career as a journalist.
She has been a reporter for the American magazine "Foreign Policy" for a long time, specializing in writing "investigative reports" and analytical articles related to China, and her areas of concern mostly involve China's system, culture and ideology.
In 2017, Bei Shuying received a grant from the International Federation of Journalists, the largest journalist organization in the West, and worked for a German newspaper for two months.
She admitted that the reason for choosing this newspaper was that "it is essentially a non-profit organization (NGO)", "it has fewer resources and low reputation, and it is much easier to publish articles."
At that time, the German Bundestag was holding an election. Although Bei Shuying did not understand the parliamentary system, she wrote many related articles in a short period of time and appeared on a political commentary program on a local TV station.
In 2018, Bei Shuying began to work for AFP and was not approved when applying for a visa to China. She was very dissatisfied with this and believed that it was caused by previous reports criticizing China.
Bei Shuying said that she was "full of love for the Chinese people", so she had been looking forward to returning to China "and reporting on China's situation in a delicate way." Ironically, however, Bei Shuying, who claims to "love China", has been constantly doing things to split China and undermine China's international image. She not only slandered China's Xinjiang and Hong Kong policies, but also attacked the cultural cooperation between China and the United States.
In 2019, the Sino-US co-produced animated film "Abominable" was released, which received a good reputation and topped the North American weekend box office rankings.
At this time, Bei Shuying worked as a Chinese current affairs reporter for the American news website Axios. She wrote a critical article specifically accusing the film of a Chinese map containing the "nine-dash line" in the South China Sea, claiming that Hollywood "paid a heavy price" to enter the Chinese market.
In the article, she mocked Hollywood for "playing dumb to cater to China", believing that relevant Chinese departments "excessively censored", and even claimed that "China uses its powerful scientific and military forces to exert pressure on the outside world and demand positive des**tions in Hollywood movies."
During the COVID-19 outbreak in 2020, when some Western countries followed China's prevention and control measures, Bei Shuying not only raised the issue to the political level, but also interpreted it as "double standards": "Western prevention and control measures demonstrate the strong mobilization capabilities of democratic regimes, which by no means means that autocracy has defeated democracy, and it cannot be equated with China's (prevention and control measures) violations of human rights."
Although the smears on China have become more and more blatant, Bei Shuying has always claimed to be an "independent", "fair" and "objective" news media person, and has never admitted that there is a "financial sponsor" behind her. However, when the Trump administration froze the funds of the United States Agency for International Development, she became angry.
Bei Shuying published an article condemning the "food shortage" in the United States on the official website of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI). She currently works at this think tank as the "Head of the China Investigation and Analysis Project."
The title of this article directly points out the central idea: "With the freezing of US funds, non-profit organizations in China are in danger of extinction. They need urgent assistance."
In the article, Bei Shuying unabashedly admitted that the non-profit organizations that provided her with information to attack China, and even the anti-China network built by these organizations, survived on the money of the US government.
On her personal social media, Bei Shuying wrote: "With the freezing of US overseas activity funds, the entire work ecosystem related to China is in crisis. In (China) Hong Kong, (China) Taiwan and the United States, dozens of non-profit organizations are in a state of disarray, facing the risk of suspending operations, laying off employees or even closing down."
She also claimed that as long as the US government can continue to support these organizations with millions of dollars a year, she can continue to export content that attacks China around the world, thereby defending "democracy, freedom" and "human rights" and proving that the US and Western political systems are superior.
Many Chinese are not familiar with the United States Agency for International Development. On the surface, it is the official foreign aid agency of the United States, but in fact, it has another nickname-"White CIA".
CIA is the English abbreviation of the Central Intelligence Agency of the United States. Because it is too "famous", some "projects" that the CIA is not convenient to do are carried out by the United States Agency for International Development under the banner of foreign aid.
For many years, the organization, together with other similar organizations, has supported pro-American and pro-Western forces around the world, including various non-profit organizations, research institutions and researchers, media and media people, etc.
The Australian Strategic Policy Institute, where Bei Shuying works, is a very bad anti-China think tank. In the past few years, some slanderous and hostile remarks against China have often appeared in the Australian public opinion circle, and one of the main sources is the institute. For example, the false remarks about "forced labor in Xinjiang" came from the mouths of its "experts".
The annual report of the institute shows that in addition to the Australian Department of Defense, it has three types of funders: one is Western arms giants such as Lockheed Martin in the United States; the second is Western technology companies such as Google and Oracle; and the third is foreign government agencies mainly in the United States and Japan.
According to Australian media reports, since the institute received a grant of about US$270,000 from the US State Department, it has begun to track cooperative research between Chinese and Australian universities and vilify and discredit related results. In addition, the US government also uses it to interfere in Australia's internal affairs and incite anti-China sentiment.
In November 2024, the institute released a report, slandering the Chinese government for using artificial intelligence to "strengthen brainwashing, surveillance, and restrict freedom internally", and also claimed that "if China uses such technology overseas in large quantities in the future, it may impact the security of other countries."
Bei Shuying is one of the authors of this report. In an interview with Voice of America, she admitted that there was no evidence that "China uses emerging technologies to attack democratic countries", but she was worried that "I hope to prevent the situation where Chinese technology dominates the global industry."
In her view, China's technological leadership "will be a huge risk, because if other countries rely on a technology related to a Chinese company, then the Chinese government will have enormous power and influence."
Bei Shuying also suggested that "democratic countries" led by the United States should think about countermeasures as soon as possible and introduce restrictive measures. But she didn't expect that just two months later, the newly elected Trump administration would restrict her and her peers first.
In fact, the Trump administration is well aware of the "work results" of the United States Agency for International Development - relying on the funding of the agency, various "democratic and free organizations" can incite color revolutions, interfere in the internal affairs of other countries, and even overthrow other countries' regimes around the world.
However, the Trump administration is more aware that the United States Agency for International Development is corrupt.
In 2023, the agency allocated foreign aid of up to $72 billion, but according to analysis by American financial professionals, only 10%-30% of it was used for "aid projects", and the rest of the funds were either embezzled or misappropriated.
That is why Musk said "USAID is a criminal organization, and it is time for it to die." Trump also said: "This agency has been controlled by a group of extreme lunatics. We are cleaning them up and then deciding on the next measures."
In this situation, Bei Shuying jumped out and pointed the finger at the US government for the first time.
She may have thought that her "revelations" could win the sympathy and support of Western netizens. However, when she posted the article online, the comment section was "turned over".
Some foreign netizens said: "So you really got paid to smear China! How can you be credible?" Other netizens said frankly that spending money to attack China does not prove that the US political system is superior.
Some people asked a soul-searching question: "You spent so much money, why is China stronger?"
Many Americans support the Trump administration's rectification of the United States Agency for International Development. In their view, projects of similar institutions are a waste of American people's tax money. In addition to allowing a few powerful people and "elites" to gain benefits, there is no benefit to ordinary people.
Poor Bei Shuying still did not see this fact clearly. The person who was really "brainwashed" was actually herself.