A wealthy American expatriate living in Shanghai, a radical anti-war group co-founded by his wife, and a web of nonprofits and media outlets are working as an "influence vector" for the Chinese Communist Party inside the American debate over artificial intelligence, according to a new report from the Bitcoin Policy Institute that lays out a multiyear campaign to undermine U.S. AI dominance.
The report, titled Foreign Influence in the Campaign against American AI, identifies Neville Roy Singham's activist and media network as "the most operationally significant foreign-aligned actor" pushing Beijing's preferred line on AI policy in the United States. Singham, a Marxist businessman whose associates reportedly call him "Comrade," is currently under congressional inquiry for his ties to the CCP.
At its core, the institute's argument is straightforward: the policy conversation about AI safety, a legitimate concern, has been infiltrated by actors whose interests align not with American workers or national security but with the geopolitical objectives of the Chinese government. And the money, the messaging, and the organizational footprint all trace back to the same network.
The Bitcoin Policy Institute, a nonprofit think tank focused on technology policy, released the report this week. It was written by Sam Lyman, the institute's head of research, who previously served as a senior advisor and chief speechwriter for Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent.
The report identifies three distinct "vectors of foreign influence" operating against American AI interests: foreign state media, foreign-billionaire funding, and the Singham Network itself, a U.S. 501(c)(3) ecosystem funded by Singham from his base in Shanghai.
That network, the report contends, "has openly collaborated with China's official state media organs and spent nearly five years producing parallel domestic content opposing US AI infrastructure, AI labs, and AI export controls."
The institute framed the stakes bluntly:
"The choice facing our country, and the world, is not between AI or no AI but between American AI or Chinese AI."
Singham did not respond to a request for comment sent through his activist wife, Jodie Evans, who co-founded the radical far-left anti-war group Code Pink, one of the organizations specifically named in the report.
The report zeroes in on two entities in particular. The first is Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research, led by close Singham ally Vijay Prashad. The second is Code Pink, Evans's group. Both have documented ties to the Singham funding network.
Just the News has previously reported on how these and other radical activist groups maintain leadership links or financial ties to Singham's network. Additional reporting by the outlet found that Singham-aligned media properties, including People's Dispatch, NewsClick, and BreakThrough News, also pushed the same pro-China, anti-U.S. narratives in the AI policy space.
The pattern is consistent. Groups funded by or linked to Singham produce content that mirrors Beijing's official positions on technology competition, semiconductor export controls, and AI development, often within days of Chinese government statements on the same topics.
Federal investigators have increasingly scrutinized radical networks and their funding streams in recent years. The FBI has traced financial networks behind domestic radical groups, and the broader federal posture toward extremist organizations has shifted markedly.
The report walks through specific examples of Tricontinental content that advanced the CCP's preferred framing. A November 2021 "dossier" titled Big Tech and the Current Challenges Facing the Class Struggle praised China's government while attacking the United States, particularly on technology policy.
That dossier complained that American control over semiconductor production gave Washington the ability to "block China's development in Information and Communication Technologies." It also criticized U.S. actions against Huawei, the CCP-linked telecommunications giant, arguing that restricting Huawei would disadvantage developing nations.
Tricontinental's framing treated U.S. national security concerns as illegitimate obstacles to Chinese technological advancement, a position indistinguishable from Beijing's own public statements.
The pattern continued in April 2023, when Prashad himself authored a Tricontinental piece titled You Are Reading This Thanks to Semiconductors. The article attacked U.S. export controls on advanced chips, controls the Commerce Department's Bureau of Industry and Security had implemented specifically to restrict China's ability to manufacture semiconductors used in military applications, weapons of mass destruction, and autonomous military systems.
The Commerce Department had been explicit about the rationale. The export controls targeted chips used by the PRC "to produce advanced military systems," "improve the speed and accuracy of its military decision making," and "commit human rights abuses."
One detail in the Bitcoin Policy Institute's analysis captures the method neatly. In his April 2023 piece, Prashad quoted an expert from the Financial Times who said the U.S. policy's "whole point" was "to kneecap China's AI and HPC efforts." But Prashad cut the quote short.
The full quote from Douglas Fuller, an expert on China's semiconductor industry at Copenhagen Business School, read differently:
"The whole point of the policy is to kneecap China's AI and HPC efforts, at least those related to the military, with the commercial side collateral damage from the US government point of view."
The phrase Prashad removed, "at least those related to the military", is the phrase that explains the entire policy. Strip it out, and the U.S. looks like a bully. Leave it in, and the export controls look like a reasonable national security measure aimed at keeping advanced military technology out of a rival's hands.
That kind of selective editing is not accidental. It is a technique, and it serves a specific interest.
The broader federal government has moved to confront both foreign and domestic threats from radical networks. The Trump administration's counterterrorism strategy has expanded the scope of groups under scrutiny.
Prashad's 2023 piece went further, quoting Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning at length. The Chinese official had attacked the October 2022 U.S. export controls the day after they were announced, accusing Washington of "abusing export control measures" and "politicising tech and trade issues."
Mao Ning's statement, published on October 8, 2022, called the controls a "blow to global industrial and supply chains and world economic recovery" and warned that the U.S. "cannot hold back China's development."
The Bitcoin Policy Institute noted the obvious: "That is Beijing's official position, issued the day after the U.S. export controls on semiconductors dropped, parroted by" a Singham-linked organization operating as a U.S. tax-exempt nonprofit.
When a 501(c)(3) organization publishes content that mirrors a foreign government's talking points, sometimes within twenty-four hours, and that organization's funding traces back to a man living in Shanghai who is under congressional investigation for CCP ties, the word "coincidence" does not quite cover it.
The institute took care to acknowledge that AI safety is a legitimate policy concern. Its report stated plainly that "ensuring that AI is safe and empowers American workers must be a top priority for U.S. policymakers." But it drew a hard line:
"The discussion about AI safety should not be influenced by geopolitical rivals, especially China... an honest conversation about AI safety requires filtering any foreign influence."
The concern is not that Americans are debating AI regulation. The concern is that the debate is being shaped, quietly, through dark money groups, nonprofit networks, and state media organizations, by actors whose goal is not American safety but Chinese advantage.
Radical activist organizations operating within the United States have drawn increasing scrutiny for tactics that range from multi-phase plans to "structurally change" America to intimidation campaigns that have shut down campus speech. The Singham Network operates in a different register, less street protest, more policy paper, but the institute's report suggests the objective is no less corrosive.
The Bitcoin Policy Institute's report raises questions it does not fully resolve. How much total money has flowed from Singham into the U.S. nonprofit ecosystem? What is the full scope of coordination between Singham-linked groups and Chinese state media? And what, if anything, will Congress do with the findings of its ongoing inquiry into Singham's CCP ties?
The report describes what it calls "a disturbing trend" of "international actors working through state media organizations, nonprofit networks, and dark money groups to shape U.S. policy and public opinion on artificial intelligence." It names names, cites specific publications, and traces the organizational links.
Whether federal investigators or congressional committees follow that trail to its end is another matter. The Singham Network has operated in plain sight for years, producing content, funding organizations, and shaping policy debates, while enjoying the tax-exempt protections of the American nonprofit system it appears to be exploiting.
When a foreign-aligned network can use American tax law to launder a hostile government's talking points into the domestic policy debate, the problem is not just foreign influence. It is a system that makes foreign influence easy.
