Former CIA China Hand Cries 'Racist' Over Elaine Chao — Then His Own China Record Comes Up

Former CIA China specialist Dennis Wilder stepped into the fight over new reporting on Elaine Chao’s ties to the Chinese government and Communist Party (CCP) organizations this week. Michael Lucci, founder and CEO of State Armor, responded with Wilder’s own China record: Georgetown, a $10 million foreign gift, congressional scrutiny of the donor, and a recent China Daily byline.

The Daily Caller News Foundation reported that Chinese government and state-media records listed Chao in four government or Communist Party-linked positions beginning in 2008. The report said three involved organizations were tied to the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) United Front Work Department (UFWD).

Chao’s spokesman denied she ever held a position with a foreign government and called the reporting “unfounded and deeply insulting, hurtful and racist.” Chao is married to Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY). 

Wilder went a step further on X.

Let's call this what it is--another racist attack on one of America's finest public servants. Absolutely shameful. https://t.co/CyubEUPDqF

— Dennis Wilder偉德寧 (@dennisw5) September 9, 2026

Wilder spent decades working the China portfolio inside the U.S. government. He served as National Security Council director for China, senior director for East Asian affairs, senior editor of the President’s Daily Brief, and CIA deputy assistant director for East Asia and the Pacific before leaving government in 2016.

That same year, he joined Georgetown’s Initiative for U.S.-China Dialogue on Global Issues. He remains a senior fellow.

Lucci pulled up what happened around that move.

Dennis Wilder, former CIA for East Asia/Pacific and former NSC Director for China:

✅Senselessly plays the race card, a common tactic of CCP operatives.

✅Runs a Georgetown program funded by a corporation run by united front operatives.

✅Publishes op-eds in CCP state media… https://t.co/glwQzIlAHV pic.twitter.com/HlUt0TWeSD

— Michael Lucci (@Michael7ucci) September 9, 2026

“The gift that funded Dennis’ Georgetown program is like a poster child for why more transparency is needed on all the CCP-tied funding that has poured into higher ed. [...] They funded a China program at Georgetown.”

Georgetown announced the initiative in January 2016 after receiving a $10 million gift from the Hong Kong-based Spring Breeze Foundation. Georgetown said Thailand’s Charoen Pokphand Group, or CP Group, supported the foundation. The university’s announcement quoted CP Group Vice Chairman Yang Xiaoping welcoming the new program.

The gift drew congressional scrutiny four years later.

Then-Rep. Mike Gallagher of Wisconsin asked the Department of Education in November 2020 to investigate the Georgetown gift. An Education Department report had already said CP Group had “ties to the Chinese government through multibillion dollar agreements.” Gallagher said the report did not go far enough into the company leadership’s connections to the CCP’s international influence network. 

Gallagher pointed to two CP Group executives.

Former CP Group chief Dhanin Chearavanont became a senior officer in the China Overseas Friendship Association (COFA), a UFWD-linked group, after a UFWD conference, according to Gallagher. Yang was a standing committee member of the Chinese Association for International Understanding (CAIFU), which Gallagher described as an organization run by the CCP's International Liaison Department.

Gallagher wanted the Education Department to look beyond the check.

“This gift is of particular concern because the Initiative for U.S.-China Dialogue on Global Issues employs in senior roles former senior U.S. officials who held key roles relating to U.S. policy towards China.”

Wilder has also continued making the case for closer U.S.-China academic ties.

In May, he published an opinion piece in China Daily arguing for expanded student exchanges between the two countries. “Today, I regret that fewer Chinese and US students have the same opportunities to expand their mindsets.”

He closed by saying he hoped American and Chinese leaders would “open the doors wider for academic exchanges to flourish once again.”

China Daily comes with its own baggage. In 2020, the State Department designated China Daily Distribution Corporation as a foreign mission, saying it acts on behalf of China Daily. State Department officials described China Daily as owned by the CCP’s Publicity Department and said the designated Chinese media organizations were subject to Chinese government control.

None of that proves Wilder held a Chinese government position, and Lucci did not claim that he did.

But Wilder made racism part of the Chao story. Lucci answered with the Georgetown money, the old Gallagher investigation, and Wilder’s own China Daily column.

Now those are part of the story, too.

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