Jeffrey Sachs, the chairman of Lancet medical journal’s COVID-19 commission, has extensive ties to several Chinese Communist Party influence groups including with ties to Hunter Biden and has voiced his opposition to “confronting China” while contributing to Chinese state-run media outlets.

Sachs, who has long dismissed the COVID-19 lab leak theory, is the Chair of the Lancet journal’s Covid-19 Commission. His lead role on the commission, which presented its findings dismissing COVID-19 originating in a Chinese lab, allows him to “oversee the investigation, not just into the origins of virus, but the world’s reaction to it in order to make recommendations for strengthening pandemic preparedness globally.”

But Sachs – like many other Western scientists cast by the media as impartial COVID-19 investigators like the World Health Organization’s Peter Daszak and Marion Koopmans – has deep ties to the Chinese Communist Party.

Conflict of Interest.

As COVID-19 was spreading across the U.S., Sachs appeared on The China Current, a show launched by the China-United States Exchange Foundation (CUSEF) propaganda group in 2019. CUSEF was founded by a former Chinese Communist Party apparatchik who serves as the Vice-Chairman of the “highest-ranking entity overseeing” China’s United Work Front according to the U.S.-China Security and Economic Review Commission.

The effort, according to the U.S. government report, aims to “to co-opt and neutralize sources of potential opposition to the policies and authority of its ruling Chinese Communist Party” and “influence overseas Chinese communities, foreign governments, and other actors to take actions or adopt positions supportive of Beijing’s preferred policies.”

In practice, CUSEF has set out to “effectively disseminate positive messages to the media, key influencers and opinion leaders, and the general public” regarding the Chinese Communist Party, according to Foreign Agent Registration Act (FARA) filings with the Department of Justice.

The host’s insistence that “we’ve come to feel safe in your hands and in your ambitions,” should serve as a major red flag.

Speaking on the podcast in May 2020, Sachs also revealed his “opposition” to “confronting China” and belief that the Trump administration’s hardline approach to the communist regime was “dangerous, wrong, absurd, on false pretenses”:

“The U.S. right-wing was attacking China beforehand and the Trump administration had its so-called trade war against China and then its technology war against China. I regarded those as dangerous, wrong, absurd, on false pretenses, but it showed China’s successes of recent years had triggered a response by the American right-wing, the hardline nationalists to say we have to confront China and Trump was in the middle of confronting China, and I think very dangerously so and I opposed it all along.”

While rebuking “nationalists [who] regard China as a threat,” Sachs adds “I just regard China as a successful country that has made its way from poverty.”

Sachs has ties to another Chinese Communist Party group keen on influencing American elites: CEFC China Energy.

CEFC China Energy’s Chairman Patrick Ho was indicted by the U.S. Department of Justice for “schemes to bribe top officials for business advantages,” and used the committee “to conceal his criminal scheme.”

He was also a close business partner of Hunter Biden, as emails between the president’s son and CEFC China Energy’s founder Ye Jianming reveal a potential contract for $10 million annually “for introductions alone.” Later emails show Hunter Biden identifying himself “unequivocally with no room for different opinions or interpretation” as a Managing Director of the Chinese military and government-linked company:

“I am the managing director of CEFC. I have complete authority as to who I hire and who I fire. I have only employees that work for me in DC.”

Sachs has spoken at CEFC events such as the Sino-US Colloquium and sat on the group’s Advisory Council in 2015.

Pay for Play?

Sachs also wrote the foreword for a position paper for Huawei, a controversial tech firm described by the U.S. State Department as “arms of the state – or, more precisely, the Chinese Communist Party.” Labeled a “national security threat” by the Trump administration and a Chinese military collaborator by the U.S. Department of Defense, Huawei routinely provides the Chinese Communist Party backdoor access to its products, networks and devices.

“By any standard, Huawei is a remarkable company and by any standard, Huawei’s vision of our shared digital future is powerful, exciting, and uniquely well informed,” Sachs writes in defense of the company’s plans to conquer global 5G networks.

“Kudos to Huawei for producing such a timely and clear roadmap to help governments, businesses and civil society to create digital nations on the path to sustainable development,” he adds.  Sachs has also pushed similarly pro-Huawei messages – such as op-eds lamenting the “war on Huawei” – in American media outlets while failing to disclose his ties to the company.

He has authored a host of op-eds criticizing America challenging the Chinese Communist Party, including pieces entitled “America’s Unholy Crusade Against China” and “Why the US Should Pursue Cooperation with China.” Sachs has also repeatedly appeared on Chinese state-run media outlets such as China Global Television Network (CGTN) on television segments such as “China is not the enemy, corporate greed is” and seen his articles run on Chinese state-run media sites.

In addition to original commentary, Sachs is heavily quoted by Chinese state-run media outlets such as Xinhua and China Daily, which hyped his comments in a piece entitled “Experts: anti-China stance ‘dangerous.”