by WorldTribune Staff, September 10, 2026 Non-AI Real World News
During her 2017 Senate confirmation hearing, Elaine Chao did not disclose several honorary and advisory titles linked to Chinese Communist Party (CCP) affiliated organizations, a report said.
Chao and her father were named honorary chairmen and advisers to councils linked to one of the organizations, the China Overseas Friendship Association, which has ties to the CCP’s United Front Work Department (UFWD), The Daily Caller News Foundation reported on Sept. 8.
Elaine Chao was designated an ‘international consultant’ of the Wuhan, China government in 2009. / Video Image
Senate confirmation paperwork requires nominees to list outside positions and honorary titles held over the preceding decade, which the report states Chao omitted in her January 2017 hearing as President Donald Trump’s nominee for Energy Secretary.
Chao, who is married to Kentucky Republican Sen. Mitch McConnell and whose Chinese name is Zhao Xiaolan, has received at least four Chinese government positions since 2008, according to the Daily Caller’s translations of Chinese government and state media reports.
That included her spot with the organization linked to the UFWD, which the communist regime in Beijing uses to steer foreign policy and “gain access to advanced foreign technology,” according to the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission.
Questions about Chao’s Chinese government ties first arose as early as 2001 following her Department of Labor nomination and recently resurfaced after McConnell was hospitalized in June while Chao visited China. McConnell’s office declined to comment.
“No American, no matter how high and mighty, should have any ties with the Communist Party’s UFWD,” Gordon Chang, China expert and author, told the Daily Caller. “This organization is dedicated to destroying our country. This should not be hard to understand.”
Chao’s United Front connections “should be disqualifying for dogcatcher, much less a Cabinet position,” said Jacqueline Deal, an advisory board member of State Armor, after reviewing the Daily Caller’s findings. State Armor is a nonprofit focused on countering “the threat of Communist China.”
“As Transportation Secretary, [Chao] did nothing to fix U.S. policy failures that have decimated our maritime industrial base while her family business profited from the CCP’s aggressive moves to exploit those failures,” Deal added.
Cabinet secretaries should not hold positions with the Chinese government or UFWD arms, Scott McGregor, a former Royal Canadian Mounted Police intelligence official, told the Daily Caller.
“This is not merely a matter of political optics or an abstract conflict-of-interest concern. It is a counterintelligence, governance and sovereignty issue,” McGregor said. “The absence of a proven quid pro quo would not make such an appointment acceptable; the appointment itself would create an avoidable and serious vulnerability in the executive branch.”
“From a counterintelligence perspective, the relevant question is not simply whether money changed hands or whether an official favor can be identified,” McGregor said. “The proper questions are whether the affiliation created access, whether it normalized contact with United Front personnel, whether it generated social or reputational obligations, whether the official’s status was used to legitimize the organization and whether the relationship could influence what the official was willing to say, examine or challenge.”
A representative for Chao and her family’s shipping business, Foremost Group, disputed the allegations. The spokesperson stated that Chao has never held a position with a foreign government and called the accusations politically or racially motivated.
