The Dragon's Long Game: How China Is Targeting America from Within

June 4, 2026 37th Anniversary — Tiananmen Square Massacre

Two women who survived China's communist machinery — one a Cultural Revolution survivor turned bestselling author, the other a libertarian activist and PRC émigré — offer a chilling, firsthand account of Beijing's ambitions on American soil.

Interviews with Xi Van Fleet (American Freedom Alliance, Los Angeles, March 31, 2025) and Mrs. Li Schoolland (FreedomFest 2025)  ·  Speech by Dr. Ming Wang (Anthem Film Festival at FreedomFest). Published June 4, 2026

Today is June 4th. In most of the world, that date means very little. In China, it means so much that the government has banned the numbers six and four from appearing together on the internet. The anniversary of the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre — when the People's Liberation Army rolled tanks over unarmed students demanding democracy — is not merely a historical wound. It is, as two Chinese-American women explained in separate interviews, a template: a window into exactly how the Chinese Communist Party treats inconvenient truths, inconvenient people, and inconvenient nations.

Those women are Ms. Xi Van Fleet, Cultural Revolution survivor and author of the newly released Made in America: The Hidden History of How the U.S. Enabled Communist China and Created Our Greatest Threat, and Mrs. Li Zhao Schoolland, a PRC émigré, libertarian activist, and speaker at FreedomFest 2025. Their accounts converge on an unsettling conclusion: the CCP's campaign to weaken and ultimately dominate the West is not a future threat. It is already underway.

A Book America Needs to Read

Xi Van Fleet is used to being heard. In 2021, a two-minute speech she delivered to a Virginia school board against Critical Race Theory went viral, drawing comparisons between Mao's Cultural Revolution and America's woke movement. Her first book, Mao's America: A Survivor's Warning, became a conservative bestseller. Her follow-up — co-written with renowned Chinese dissident Yu Jie — goes further and deeper, tracing how American elites, over more than a century, helped build the very monster that now threatens them.

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Made in America — Xi Van Fleet & Yu Jie

The untold story of how misguided U.S. elites transformed China from a communist wasteland into a global superpower — at America's expense. Available wherever books are sold, including Amazon.

Xi van Fleet at American Freedom Alliance event 

"It's titled Made in America," Van Fleet explained at the American Freedom Alliance event in Los Angeles. "The subtitle — The Hidden History of How the U.S. Enabled Communist China and Created Our Greatest Threat — is very important." The book's central argument is that China's rise was not an accident of history or an inevitability of economics. It was built, piece by piece, with American money, technology, and willful blindness.

What Communism Is Really About

Van Fleet pushes back hard against the assumption that politicians aligned with socialist or communist ideology are simply misguided idealists who wish to improve other people's lives. That framing, she argues, fundamentally misunderstands the nature of the ideology.

"Communism is really about power. It's nothing about improving people's lives. Never. That's just a tactic — before they take over, that's how they try to convince the public. Once they get power, they will try to maintain power. That is their focus. Always."

Xi Van Fleet American Freedom Alliance, Los Angeles

The question of whether Western politicians who embrace socialist rhetoric are true believers or cynical opportunists, she suggests, may be less important than the structural outcome: one-party dominance. "State like California is good," she said pointedly, "but they want the whole country that way."

She also addressed the fear — common among critics of the left — that communist-style authoritarianism would require the kind of mass violence that characterized Mao's China. Not necessarily, she warns. "They don't have to kill millions. As long as they're in power, they can do all sorts of things." The Cultural Revolution's 20 million deaths, she noted, were mostly inflicted not by government agents with guns, but by ordinary citizens turned against each other — a fact she finds more disturbing, not less.

The Street and the Square: A Revolutionary Parallel

When the conversation turned to the wave of protest movements that have swept American cities in recent years — from the 2020 racial justice demonstrations to the "No Kings" rallies — Mrs. Li Schoolland drew an immediate and visceral parallel.

"That reminds me of the Chinese Cultural Revolution. Mao encouraged young people to go on the street and condemn everything good — knowledge, history, art, music, anything with culture or thinking or philosophy. They went on the street to condemn all that."

Mrs. Li Schoolland FreedomFest 2025

Li Schoolland, author of "A Survivor's Story" poses with
Dr. Ming Wang, author of "From Darkness to Sight" at
FreedomFest '25 in Southern California

But she stopped short of despair. America's constitutional foundations, she argued, provide a buffer that China never had. "Our country is founded on the principle of liberty, freedom, democracy, and the rule of law. So even though they have many demonstrations, it's not going to change anything." The critical difference, she emphasized, is that in America the demonstrators cannot become the government by force. In China, they already were.

Xi Van Fleet, meanwhile, traced the funding behind the current protest wave to sources far closer to Beijing than most Americans realize. She pointed to investigations by journalist Asra Nomani, which reportedly traced financing for recent "No Kings" protests to American tech billionaire Neville Roy Singham — a self-described Marxist living in Shanghai who reportedly funnels hundreds of millions of dollars through a network of pro-China activist groups. "That's how China is reaching out and influencing," Van Fleet said.

The Invisible Occupation

Perhaps the most startling claims in both interviews concern not geopolitical maneuvering, but the physical presence of CCP influence on American soil. Mrs. Schoolland did not mince words.

"They have Chinese police stations — not just in Chinatown, everywhere. On campuses. And they have students paid by the Chinese government coming here not to study, but to spy on other Chinese students and to make trouble."

Mrs. Li Schoolland FreedomFest 2025

She described Chinese nationals who drove luxury cars in 2020 protest parades — not out of solidarity, she argued, but out of satisfaction. "Anything that hurts the United States, they're happy about. But they're sitting in the United States, enjoying our taxpayer-funded benefits and technology and freedom. They cannot do the same thing back in China — there's no way."

On the question of CCP influence within American political parties, Mrs. Schoolland was careful but clear. "I don't know, but I'm sure there's a lot of money going to candidates. A lot of influence." When asked whether she would be surprised to learn the CCP was behind funding current demonstrations, she replied: "I won't be surprised at all. Because that's what they want. They think the US is the enemy. They want to hurt us in every means."

Racism, Envy, and the Psychology of a Rising Power

One thread that runs through both interviews, and that rarely surfaces in mainstream discourse, is China's internal racial hierarchy. When critics of Chinese government policy are dismissed as "racist," Mrs. Schoolland offered a pointed rebuttal.

"If you talk about racist — China is the most racist nation. Chinese people will not sit next to a person with darker skin than theirs. They think those people carry some kind of disease. That's the attitude. And they look at the West with envy — envy that leads to hate. So they have to put themselves up in order to look down at other people, especially the United States."

Mrs. Li Schoolland FreedomFest 2025

The goal, she argued, is not simply economic competition or geopolitical rivalry. "They want to be the world power — in control. But they also know they can't control America directly. What they can do is influence the politicians, the government. Bring America down enough that they rise by comparison."

CCP Chinese tanks fire upon civilian protesters in Tiananmen Square, June 4th, 1989

Chinese human-rights activists featured in documentarian Ben Klein's "The Exiles" respond to the Anthem Film Festival audience at FreedomFest

The Anthem Film Fest, held concomitant to FreedomFest last July, screened the documentary "The Exiles." In it, documentarian Christine Choy tracks down three exiled dissidents from the Tiananmen Square massacre, in order to find closure on an abandoned film she began shooting in 1989.  

Mr. Fengsuo Zhou, Chinese democracy and human-rights activist, was joined by Mrs. Li Schoolland and filmmaker Mr. Ben Klein to discuss the documentary 

In a post-screening panel joined by The Exiles' documentarian Ben Klein, exiled Chinese human-rights activists Mr. Fengsuo Zhou and Mrs. Li Zhao Schoolland shared experiences and insights from the Chinese democracy movement leading up to the Tiananmen Square massacre in 1989.

They discussed the importance of recognizing individual identity within the Chinese community, the connection between the 1989 protests and current resistance in China, and their efforts to support political prisoners. Mr. Zhou also shared stories of dissidents who have been separated from their loved ones for decades due to their activism. The speakers emphasized the need for financial support and media awareness to help political prisoners survive and potentially secure their early release.

They also discussed the Chinese military's strict control over information leading up to the massacre and China's influence on the current administration in the United States. They addressed the tense relationship between China and the United States, with Zhou expressing concerns about China's impact on American policy and society. Overall, the speakers highlighted the importance of international support in the fight for freedom and democracy in China.

• 00:00:00 In this section of the video titled "The (CCP) Exiles" at Anthem Film FreedomFest '23, Fengsuo Zhou and Mrs. Li Schoolland share their experiences during the Chinese democracy movement leading up to the Tiananmen Square massacre in 1989. Fengsuo Zhou, formerly a student leader, recounts watching his classmates die on the streets and being surprised to find himself on the Chinese government's most wanted list. He felt proud of his new identity as the voice of the movement and was the first to arrive and last to leave Tiananmen Square during this historic time. The courage and dignity displayed by the Chinese people during this period shocked the world, and voices were heard for the first time from their own hearts.
  
  
• 00:05:00 In this section they discuss the importance of recognizing individual identity within the Chinese community despite widespread indoctrination. Zhou shares his experience of the US government's complicity in the Tiananmen Square massacre, as former President Bush sent a special envoy to comfort the Chinese government leader, D, acknowledging guilt and collusion. This year, the Biden administration sent a high-ranking official to Beijing on the anniversary without mentioning human rights, normalizing the massacre. Zhou condemned this and was censored in both Chinese and English media, but Reuters reported on his comments. The documentary also highlights a message of hope, as one of the main characters, the founder of a famous Chinese private company, started a protest on Suon Bridge last year, which lasted only 30 minutes but was broadcasted worldwide, demonstrating the power of individual action.
  
  

  

  Filmmaker Ben Klein, human rights activists Li Schoolland, and Fengsuo Zhou

  
  
• 00:10:00 In this section they discuss the connection between the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests and current resistance in China. Zhou shares his surprise that the Su on Bridge, a symbol of the protests, still exists and recounts the heroic protest of an individual student during the event. He also mentions the inspiration young protesters draw from the past, with many calling themselves "my duty groups." Zhou then shares the story of an unnamed woman who climbed a tower in Beijing on the anniversary of the Tiananmen Square Massacre, holding an American flag and distributing flyers advocating for China to be a country where people want to stay. Despite the risks, there is growing resistance in China, and organizations like the one Zhou works for have been providing support to political prisoners for decades. The speakers express the privilege and inspiration they find in working with these courageous individuals.