Image by tommao wang.

On March 26th, Congressman Jim Banks sent a letter to Attorney General Pamela Bondi requesting that CODEPINK be investigated for our alleged funding from the Chinese Communist Party. According to him, our activism against the genocide in Gaza is antisemitic and undermines US-Israel relations, and therefore must mean we are acting on China’s behalf.

To state it very clearly: CODEPINK is in no way funded by China, nor any other foreign government or agency. We are funded primarily by donations from concerned citizens that support peace over war. Anyone can check. We pass every audit, unlike the Pentagon.

China is merely the newest figure in a long line of state-crafted boogeymen. Before China, there was Russia, Iran, Venezuela… the list goes on. Point being: wherever we advocate for peace, the government throws accusations of foreign funding. Why? Because they seek to delegitimize our opinion and silence us, just like they are currently attempting to silence student activists by detaining and threatening them with deportation. But we will not be silenced.

As the coordinator of the “China Is Not Our Enemy” Campaign at CODEPINK, I would like to address some of the accusations Banks made in his letter to the attorney general.

“Code Pink has a demonstrated track record of operating in the interests of the CCP.”

Response: We do not care about the interests of the CCP. Our campaign was created in response to the US “Pivot to Asia” and subsequent preparation for a future war with China. China only became our “enemy” once its success began to challenge US global hegemony. We say “China is not our enemy” because the US government and media are saying that China is our enemy, leading us straight into war. We believe open diplomacy and dialogue is the only way forward, not military escalation.

“Code Pink routinely lobbies for conciliatory US policies on China and aggressively denies reports of CCP........

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