The more they look for the sort of thing, the more they’re going to find. As with Russian money in the UK, US institutions are awash in Chinese (and Russian, et al) money. It launders, it gains influence while looking charitable. https://twitter.com/joshrogin/status/1336645205123067906

The obvious and individual examples make headlines briefly, like paying £90,000 to play tennis with Boris Johnson, but donating to universities, think tanks, and sports events, or buying sports teams outright, can be a very effective strategic play for dictatorships.

Official diplomatic ties and normal channels for investment are often limited after you, say, butcher a journalist, invade a neighbor, or put a minority in concentration camps. But personal ties, often via private institutions, are now they prefer to do things anyway.

It’s a shadow network that brings together the rich and powerful from the free and unfree worlds at parties, fundraisers, and VC rounds. Not always criminal, but the oligarchs always have to maintain loyalty to the motherland eventually.

And by motherland, it’s still mostly the CCP for China, but it’s Putin or MbS personally for Russia and Saudi, quite different. No real national interest, just money and power to get it and keep it. Mafia.