Activists Protest Alt Right Leader Richard Spencer's MSU Appearance

EAST LANSING, MI - MARCH 05: White nationalists clash with counter-demonstrators before the start of a speech by white nationalist Richard Spencer, who popularized the term 'alt-right', at Michigan State University on March 5, 2018 in East Lansing, Michigan. Spencer was granted permission to speak after suing the university which is currently on Spring break. (Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images)An earlier version of this op-ed incorrectly identified Glenn Tiffert. He is a visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution. This version has been corrected.

China's President Xi Jinping waits for the start of a signing ceremony with Maldives' President Abdulla Yameen at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on Dec. 7. (Fred Dufour/AP)

Columnist

Washington is waking up to the huge scope and scale of Chinese Communist Party influence operations inside the United States, which permeate American institutions of all kinds. China's overriding goal is, at the least, to defend its authoritarian system from attack and at most to export it to the world at America's expense.

The foreign influence campaign is part and parcel of China's larger campaign for global power, which includes military expansion, foreign direct investment, resource