The Diplomat author Mercy Kuo regularly engages subject-matter experts, policy practitioners, and strategic thinkers across the globe for their diverse insights into U.S. Asia policy. This conversation with Shannon Van Sant – strategy and public affairs advisor for the Committee for Freedom in Hong Kong Foundation and author of “Hong Kong’s Greater Bay Area and the CCP’s Strategy to Influence U.S. State and Local Officials” (2025) – is the 475th in “The Trans-Pacific View Insight Series.”
Explain the geopolitical agenda behind Hong Kong’s Greater Bay Area (GBA) and its overtures to San Francisco’s Bay Area.
China’s Communist Party is using Hong Kong’s Greater Bay Area (GBA) as a tool of influence and propaganda to draw investment, entrepreneurs, and tourists to Hong Kong. After years of harsh COVID restrictions and Beijing’s crackdown on democracy, the CCP’s promotion of GBA projects signals to the world that Hong Kong is back to business again as a gateway between mainland China and the rest of the world. The Hong Kong Economic and Trade Offices also use the GBA to facilitate investment and technology partnerships on the subnational level in the U.S. and globally.
The GBA encompasses Hong Kong, Macau, and nine cities in Guangdong Province, including Shenzhen, which is home to technology giants such as Huawei, DJI, ZTE, and Tencent. Beijing seeks to transform the GBA into a global hub of innovation that can rival the United States’ Silicon Valley. It has also said that the GBA’s investments in high technology must advance development of the People’s Liberation Army.
The overtures from Hong Kong’s GBA to San Francisco’s Bay Area are purposeful. As the world’s global hub of innovation, Silicon Valley plays a significant role in U.S.-China technology competition. At a 2019 San Francisco forum on “Global Bay Areas” the deputy chief editor of China’s People’s Daily Online spoke of Beijing’s goal of building “the Greater Bay Area into one of the world’s leading bay areas by learning from the best.”
From Beijing’s perspective, San Francisco is an important region to partner with as China strives to learn from U.S. entrepreneurs and hone its technology transfer efforts, with a goal of developing GBA into a rival hub that the CCP wants some day to surpass the United States.
Analyze the Chinese Communist Party’s U.S. subnational strategy and the GBA’s role in this strategy.
The CCP fosters relationships with U.S. state and local leaders as a means of bypassing the fraught U.S.-China relationship at the federal level. This allows Beijing to build a groundswell of support among local leaders in the U.S. for agendas that benefit the CCP. Through “twinning” the GBA and San Francisco Bay Areas, Beijing is able to strengthen its networks of influence in the U.S.
Such subnational efforts at relationship building on the local level elude transparency, national scrutiny, and – with the disintegration of local U.S. news outlets – reporting on by the press. To build these relationships Beijing often focuses on two themes: combating climate change and boosting U.S.-China trade and investment. While engagement over these issues is laudable, local U.S. officials must understand the full spectrum of risks of these engagements, including coercion, political interference, and technology agreements that have the potential to harm U.S. firms and workers. Local leaders must enter any partnership and exchange with a full understanding of the layers of that engagement.
Beijing does not allow reciprocity in these efforts. America’s leaders are not permitted to bypass China’s central government to build relationships directly with local constituencies in the PRC, creating an asymmetry in U.S.-China engagement favoring the CCP.
How should the U.S. State Department more closely scrutinize U.S.-China sister city agreements?
U.S. local leaders should notify their state government and the U.S. State Department of any sister city agreement and publicly disclose the terms of those partnerships. There should also be mandated transparency and scrutiny of technology agreements between cities in the U.S. and China, and in particular those that could impact U.S. critical infrastructure.
The State Department should be thoroughly briefing state and local officials on sister city agreements and providing guidelines for managing risks. It should simultaneously press China for reciprocity in subnational engagement.
Examine the role of the Chinese People’s Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries (CPAFFC) in general and specifically in “Bay to Bay Dialogues.”
CPAFFC is a key political influence organization of the United Front, which aims to strengthen the rule of the CCP and control and mobilize people to support the party’s goals. It is overseen by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and coordinates China’s subnational diplomacy and sister city agreements. CPAFFC also sponsors conferences in the United States connecting PRC leaders with U.S. governors, mayors, and state and local legislators, and has used these events to try and rally U.S. local officials against federal policies China opposes.
CPAFFC co-organized the 2024 Bay to Bay Dialogue in Berkeley, California, alongside the Guangdong provincial government, the California state government, and the California-China Climate Institute. Yang Wanming, the head of CPAFFC, was part of a 100-person delegation China sent to the Bay to Bay Dialogue. Chinese state media reported that agreements announced during the summit included efforts to fight climate change, a youth exchange program and cooperation between CPAFFC and the Pacific Civic Exchange, a non-profit organization in California.
Assess the level of understanding from San Francisco Bay Area and Silicon Valley local government officials of the GBA’s objectives and CPAFFC activities.
The development of GBA into a technology powerhouse and its overtures to San Francisco are an effort conceived of by China’s central government. The promotion of a bay-to-bay relationship has been visible and orchestrated across PRC state media organizations at the central and provincial level, United Front entities, and local, subnational lobbying efforts in the U.S.
Today’s local officials are tomorrow’s national leaders, and the PRC cultivates relationships with influential individuals over the long term. The PRC has brought Silicon Valley mayors to China for all-expense paid trips, exposing these officials to spotting and assessing opportunities by the CCP, and showing them only one side of “the China story.” During these trips Chinese state media promoted reports about discussions of possible technology partnerships with the mayors, reflecting a CCP goal for their subnational dialogues with the U.S.
Furthermore, several local elected officials are serving on the board and management of an organization pressing for closer ties between the PRC and Silicon Valley. This not only necessitates transparency and public disclosure but could be a conflict of interest. Such subnational overtures from the PRC increase the risks of local officials unintentionally aligning with CCP foreign policy goals counter to U.S. interests.
Narratives have power, and the PRC knows that. Through CPAFFC, China determines the agenda and narratives it wishes to communicate at the subnational level in the U.S. In its subnational efforts, the CCP aims to build support for its goals and establish leverage in its relationship with the U.S. American state and local officials should go into these engagements with their eyes wide open and armed with their own clearly defined narratives and agendas, which reflect U.S. values, principles, and long-term strategic interests.