Harvard University, the crown jewel of American higher education, just handed its commencement stage to this Chinese student, the daughter of a Chinese Communist Party official. Yes, you heard that right. a student whose family is connected to a CCPbacked NGO, one that operates like a diplomatic proxy for Beijing, stood before thousands of students, professors, parents, and global media and delivered a speech about quote seeing the humanity in your enemy. Now, that might sound beautiful at first, poetic even. But here’s the twist.
The speech wasn’t a scandal. The speaker was. That start with Howard’s side of the story because they probably think they’re doing the right thing. They’ll tell you this is about celebrating global diversity, that they giving a voice to a global student body and reminding the world that Howard is open to everyone, no matter where you come from. And they will continue to say this student didn’t choose her family, so don’t judge her for her father’s career. focus on her empty words, her story, her experience.
Sure, fair enough. But here’s the problem. There’s a very big difference between diversity and political blindness. When you put someone on stage whose father is a senior official in a Chinese people’s association for friendship with foreign countries, also known as the uh CPA FFC, you’re not just giving a platform to a student. You’re giving a symbolic victory to the Chinese Communist Party. And in doing so, you are also showing the world just how naive or compromised some of our elite institutions have become.
The organization her father works for, the CPA, FFC, sounds harmless. It has the word friendship in it. Who doesn’t love friendship? But this group is not about cultural exchange. It’s not about people-to-people diplomacy. It’s a front organization for the CCP’s United Front Work Department. The young of the Chinese party state tasked with influencing foreign elites, co-opting overseas Chinese, and spreading probeijing narratives worldwide.
The US State Department has called this organization part of China’s soft power strategy to malign influence democratic societies. Its job is to make authoritarianism look like a legitimate alternative to liberal democracy. Its job is to infiltrate, influence, and manipulate public perception. and Harvard just gave it center stage. Now imagine this. It’s 2022. Yale chooses a graduating senior whose parent is a high ranking official in the Russian KGB while the war in Ukraine is raging. Would anyone defend that?
Would media outlets call it brave or inspiring? or what they call it what it is, a massive embarrassing misjudgment. So why does China keep getting a pass? Let’s rewind a bit. Remember Harvard’s relationship with the US government, especially under the Trump administration, has been rocky. The US DOJ sued Howard over its admissions practices, arguing that it discriminated against Asian-American applicants, that lawsuit became part of a larger cultural and political battle. But here’s the irony.
After all the legal fighting, all the media coverage, and all the talk about fairness and transparency, Howard turns around and puts a student directly connected to the Chinese state apparatus in a spotlight. Not a random international student, not a kid from humble beginnings, but somebody whose family sits in the power circles of the Chinese Communist Party. The same regime that has crushed freedom in Hong Kong silenced whistleblowers during CO disappeared the lawyers and generalists and threatens Taiwan almost every week. This isn’t progress.
This is intellectual hypocrisy. Let’s pull apart part of his speech. She said, “True courage is seeing the humanity in your enemy.” Sounds profound, right? But here’s the question. Who is her enemy? Is it Americans? Is it Taiwanese who want to keep living their independent and peaceful lives? Is it critiques of the Chinese regime? Or is he simply a line designed to sound enlightened while avoiding any serious engagement with the realities of repression, censorship and political violence in her own country?
Because if you really believe in seeing humanity in your enemy, where was that courage when the dissident in China were jailed for speaking out? Where was the humanity when we Muslims were thrown into intimate camps? Where was the moral clarity when students in Hong Kong were beaten and arrested for demanding basic civil rights? Let’s be honest, this wasn’t a speech about choose or reconciliation. This was moral relativism dressed up in Ivy League pros, legitimizing authoritarian narratives.
The bigger danger here isn’t the speech, it’s the legitimacy it confers. By elevating someone connected to the CCP’s influence machinery, Harvard has done more than just honor student. It has helped sanitize the image of an authoritarian regime. It tells the world this isn’t a problem. These are just cultural differences. we can all just get along. But they’re not cultural differences. They are fundamental human rights violations, systemic oppression, strategic disinformation.
And when elite institutions like Harvard, institutions that shape global opinion ignore that, whether out of ignorance, elegance, or financial interest, they don’t just look foolish. They become complicit in a slow erosion of democratic values. This isn’t about one student. It’s about a pattern. When meritocracy becomes a smoke screen for political appeasement. When speeches about empathy are used to dodge accountability.
When the most prestigious university in the world hands over its microphone to a mouthpiece, knowingly or not for the CCP, you have to ask, what values does Harvard actually stand for? Because this year, Harvard didn’t just hand out degrees. It handed over credibility to a regime that has done nothing to earn it. If you believe that American values still matter, that elite institutions should stand for freedom, not flirt with authoritarianism, then speak up, share this video, challenge the narrative because soft power is only soft until it rewrites the story. And right now that story is being written in plain sight.
