The leader of the
far-left anti-war group Code Pink — who is married to a wealthy Marxist
businessman living in Shanghai who funds an array of socialist activist
groups in the U.S. — personally recruited Americans for pro-CCP “Red
China” trips in the country.
The “China Community Trip Interest Meeting” was held
by Code Pink in late January. The trips promoted by Code Pink include
praise of the Communist revolution in China, of the socialist economic
system imposed upon China, and of CCP military leader (and eventual
Chinese dictator) Mao Zedong’s famous — or infamous — Long March, which
in their view, saved the CCP from destruction and allowed the communists
to rebuild and eventually conquer China. Historians estimate that Mao "was responsible for over 70 million deaths in peacetime" during this period.
Evans: China “a wonderland of socialist expression”
Just the News attended the openly accessible Zoom
meeting which was led by Code Pink co-founder Jodie Evans, who praised
China as “a wonderland of socialist expression.” Just the News joined by signing up for the event using this reporter’s real name. Just the News took extensive notes and screenshots of the China trip recruitment effort led by Evans.
Neville Roy Singham married Evans in 2017. Her group touts itself as antiwar and has become increasingly pro-China in recent years.
The China Academy’s trips pushed by Code Pink — dubbed Red
China, Iconic China, Wellness China, and Kungfu China — say that they
are “developed in collaboration with” Sunriver, a Chinese tourism
company founded by Chinese businessman Yu Faxiang. The Chinese founder was reportedly detained in China in a criminal investigation in December.
The “Kungfu China” trip in particular was also “developed in collaboration with Dana ‘Showtyme’ Burton.” Code Pink says
that Burton “is the founder of Iron Mic, a Chinese freestyle rap battle
series that began in 2002 and continues to serve as a platform for
Chinese hip-hop artists.”
The China Academy’s “China Not Just Travel” website
— which provides itineraries for these trips — says that “our curated
trips cover everything from the vast and magnificent nature of China to
soaring modernity and technological breakthroughs; from China's ancient
wisdom to its recent revolutionary history and socialist path towards
development.”
Singham, who lives and works in Shanghai, helps fund and
guide a network behind pro-CCP news sites and other China-linked
endeavors. Singham, who sold his ThoughtWorks tech company in 2017, has used the money to fund openly communist activist efforts.
The State Department reportedly said in
a recent report titled “Countering Foreign Information Manipulation and
Interference” that the Chinese government “spreads propaganda through
influence campaigns run by nonprofit organizations like Code Pink, the
People’s Forum, and groups linked with the notorious Singham network.”
Just the News has previously reported on how these and other radical
activist groups have leadership links or financial ties to the funding
network backed by Singham, whom others in his network call "Comrade."
Evans, Code Pink, the China Academy, and Sunriver did not respond to requests for comment.
"Like woah": Code Pink recruits Americans for pro-CCP trip
Evans led the China trip recruitment meeting back on Jan.
28, with participation from the pro-CCP China Academy, which was
organizing the trip’s itinerary. Singham’s wife called China “a
wonderland of a socialist expression which you're going to be feeling
every day and be in wonder at which I still am in wonder at, like,
whoa.”
Megan Russell, Code Pink’s “China is Not Our Enemy” campaign coordinator, also assisted during the meeting. Kurt Pierce, who appears to be an official part of Code Pink’s campaign, and Tighe Barry, a longtime Code Pink protester and activist, also helped Evans during the Zoom recruitment effort.
Mimi Zhu of the China Academy, who spoke at length about
the travel options — including the “Red China” trip — is the host of the
“Roughly Chinese Pod” podcast through the China Academy’s Wave Media, and she has had Evans as a guest
in the past. Evans kicked off the recruitment meeting, which featured
roughly 50 prospective trip-goers, by excitedly declaring, “We’re across
the country!”
“There’s Tighe. Good job in Congress today, Tighe!” Evans
also said. “Hope everybody got to see Code Pink disrupt horrible Marco
Rubio today.” Code Pink separately touted
on its website how it had interrupted a Senate Foreign Relations
Committee hearing featuring Secretary of State Rubio earlier that day.
Evans also remarked, “Oh yay, maybe Madea” — in reference to Code Pink co-founder Madea Benjamin — “is going to come to China!”
When one potential trip-goer asked about the revolutionary
and socialist development of modern China, Evans said, “Well, you're
gonna get that every minute. That's what you're gonna experience every
minute.”
Evans remarked that it “looks like Fall Red is very
popular” with prospective trip-goers. In a small group breakout session,
Evans sought to steer participants away from the “Wellness China” trip
and toward either the “Red China” trip or the “Iconic China” trip.
“The Red [China trip]'s really like the process of the
Great March, which nobody understands,” Evans said. “And if you don't
understand the Great March, and if you don't understand the revolution,
you're not going to understand China. You're not going to understand why
people love it, why socialist China means so much to the people.”
Evans: "Go through the red process" and "floss your brain"
Evans said that “what we do is we take our white, western
mind and we try to imprint it on top of China, and that doesn't work. So
if you want to just help, kind of floss your brain, going through the
red process, which is like you're really — and it's not an
indoctrination, it's a history lesson.”
Singham’s wife said that Zhu and others at the China
Academy had “started as part of the China's Not Our Enemy community” but
that they were “now in China” and said that Zhu “has pulled together
some amazing trips to give others an opportunity to find more out about
China, instead of all the propaganda that is layered on us over and over
again through literally centuries, here, it's not new, the propaganda.”
“So Mimi is an amazing author, an amazing activist, a great
storyteller, a deep researcher, and someone who, in the spirit of Code
Pink, you know, educates, inspires, and activates daily,” Evans said.
“So I, just a few months ago, got to go on a little taste of the tours
that they're putting together. Maybe later we can put up one of the
videos of Mimi dragging me up a mountain and deciding to interview me at
the very end of it, when I could barely talk.”
Zhu stressed that “we really prioritize the Code Pink
trips, and we want to make sure everybody has a very fulfilling and
whole experience.”
She said that the trip was a chance to “meet comrades — and
it's really perfect, because Code Pink is a community already, so you
guys can get to know each other even better in China, which I think is
amazing. You can learn together. You all have common interests.”
Zhu also referred to America as “the belly of the beast” as
she praised China. She said the goal of the China trips was “debunking
the myth that China is culturally hegemonic” and “debunking the myth
that China is erasing certain elements of the culture.” Zhu also said
that “you get to see the socialist development” in China.
“Red China” trip praises Communist revolution and Mao’s Long March
The webpage banner
for the “Red China” trip features the hammer and sickle of the Chinese
flag. The 12-day and 11-night itinerary aims to “explore China’s
revolutionary and socialist history” with “highlights” including “Red
Memorials, Historical Re-Enactments and Museums, Socialist
Infrastructure.”
The second day — on “Revolutionary Beginnings” — begins
with “orientation at Wave Media” — run by the China Academy — and then
includes a visit to the “First and Second Congress of the Communist
Party of China in Shanghai.”
Zhu said in late January that “the Red China itinerary” was
“one that I suspect will be very appealing to our Code Pinkers. So this
one is all about the Long March, and it actually takes you on a very
small portion of the Long March journey. So you can go to some of the
iconic landmarks, some of the resting posts of the Long March. So the
highlights are the red memorials, historical reenactments, as well as
understanding the history of the Long March and all the different places
that the People's Liberation Army went to and the stories behind them.”
The China Academy travel recruiter said that “this is,
again, another mix of the socialist, communist history, the
revolutionary history” of the CCP.
“Iconic China” trip focuses on “Red History” , pandas and praise for socialism
The “Iconic China” trip to China focuses on exploring
“China’s famous symbols and the history that led to today,” according to
the itinerary. The “highlights” include “pandas” as well as “Red History” and “modern socialist development.”
Zhu said during the late January event that “the way to
understand socialist development it’s very important to go to museums
and go to these different operas and shows and understand the culture
and see the people, of course, but it's also, it's also really important
to understand all the different elements of Chinese culture as well. …
So this iconic China is kind of a mixture of all the most iconic
elements of Chinese society that you see added with a layer of socialist
development and socialist understanding.”
The “Wellness China” trip — also lasting 12 days and 11 nights — says
it aims to “explore the beautiful mountainous countryside of China”
with the highlights including “Traditional Chinese Medicine” and
“socialist modernization.”
The trip includes “orientation at Wave Media” as well as a
visit to the “First Congress of the Communist Party to understand the
origins of the Communist Party of China.”
Zhu said in late January that “Jodie and I actually went on a portion of the Wellness China one.”
“We get to learn about the alternatives to Western medicine
and the kinds of modes that we get offered in the West, and how we're
told that the West is the best. But really, as we all know, China has a
2,000 — not 2,000 — 5,000-year plus civilization,” Zhu said.
The “Kungfu China” trip — yet another visit lasting 12 days and 11 nights — aims to “explore China’s Kungfu origins” which are allegedly “intertwined with deep connections to Hip Hop and Rap music.”
The China Academy’s links to the Singham network — and the CCP
The China Academy describes itself
as “an intellectual content network dedicated to helping global
audiences understand the key dynamics that are driving how China sees
the world, from expert voices who resonate with millions of Chinese
youths today and who shape policies and narratives in China.” The
academy claims to have “over 150 million subscribers across Chinese
social media” and “extensive connections with China’s top
intellectuals.”
The “contributors” for the academy include Evans, as well as others tied to Singham, including Vijay Prashad, the executive director of Tricontinental Institute for Social Research, also linked to the Singham network, and Rania Khalek, a far-left host on BreakThrough News, which is also part of the Singham network.
Other contributors to the China Academy include Russian philosopher Aleksandr Dugin — a Kremlin ally sometimes dubbed “Putin’s Brain” — as well as Chinese government-linked figures such as Hu Xijin, a former editor-in-chief of the CCP-run Global Times, and Wang Xiangsui, a former senior colonel in China’s Air Force and co-author of the 1999 book Unrestricted Warfare.
The China Academy appears to run Wave Media, with the media group’s YouTube page making it clear that it is part of the academy. Wave Media’s “Bottom Wave” website on the Chinese Bilibili platform includes a “collection” uploaded in 2023 titled “BT News” — with numerous video clips of interviews related to the Singham-linked BreakThrough. Another “collection” from 2022 relates to “Interpreting the Report of the 20th CPC National Congress.”
Zhu said during the China trip recruitment effort that “I
am part of a group called Wave Media slash China Academy in Shanghai.”
She claimed that “Wave Media, our whole philosophy is that we want to
tell China's stories, you know, beyond the Western propaganda.”
Evans and Zhu appeared to be close, with Code Pink playing a
role in Zhu’s political transformation. “I used to live in New York
City, which is where I met Jodie, and I lived there for eight years, and
living there really politicized me, you know, it showed me the truth of
the belly of the beast, because I think, and I'm not American, and I
think non-Americans generally had a very different view of what America
is,” Zhu said. “After living there, I really got to see it. And then,
because I was so politicized there, and I went to one of Code Pink
seminars about China, I started to really shift my thinking about China
as well.”
Zhu added: “So now I have actually moved to China, and I've
spent time with Jodie and other Code Pink comrades who are in this
group in China, and it's been amazing.”
Code Pink’s Jodie Evans declares: “China Is Not Our Enemy”
Evans is also the co-author of a 2025 book — unsurprisingly, also titled "China Is Not Our Enemy" — with fellow co-author Mikaela Nhondo Erskog, who has written articles for the Singham network-linked People’s Dispatch and who is also an associate editor at Tricontinental.
Evans held what appeared to be among the first of her "China Is Not Our Enemy" events in November 2020 — shortly after Joe Biden defeated Donald Trump in the presidential election. Evans held the online conversation with Sheila Xiao, a co-founder of the pro-China Pivot to Peace activist organization, who was also a leader within the Party for Socialism and Liberation and the ANSWER Coalition — both of which are tied to the Singham network.
“We’re talking with those people who are working to stop the next Cold War,” Evans said
at the time. “You know, at Code Pink this is deja vu for us. Here we
enter a time that is just like when we started Code Pink. There were
lies, there was hate, it was being driven by the media and those in
power. And here we are again. But this time it is with China.”
The Singham-linked People’s Forum in Manhattan held a December 2020 event claiming
that “in the face of growing, bipartisan U.S. aggression on China,
misinformation, racist narratives, and warmongering make it difficult to
understand the situation clearly” and asking, “What can we as
organizers, activists, students, workers, do to push for deescalation
and an end to this US-imposed new cold war?”
The CCP’s People’s Daily ran
a March 2023 story touting a Code Pink disruption of the first public
hearing by the House Select Committee on the CCP. “Protesters disrupted
the first hearing of a House select committee investigating so-called
threats that China poses to the US on Tuesday. Olivia DiNucci, an
organizer for Code Pink, held a sign that read ‘China is not our enemy’
at the hearing,” the CCP-linked outlet said.
“DiNucci delivered a clear and direct message that ‘the
American people need cooperation, not competition with China,’ a
statement from the organization said,” the article by the CCP outlet
added. “Code Pink is a women-led grassroots organization working to end
US wars and militarism, and support peace and human rights initiatives.”
Code Pink went on
to defend China and Evans: “Fortunately, peace activists have better
historical pattern recognition than most politicians. And Evans saw the
same tools being wielded against China: the manufacturing of an enemy
through war propaganda, media campaigns, and lies. How had China
suddenly become the number one security threat to the U.S. when it
hadn’t been involved in an overseas conflict for decades? When it had
never stated a desire for war, only peace? When it was so internally
focused on improving the lives of its own citizens?”
“The answer was clear: China had risen fast, going from a
poor, underdeveloped victim of colonization and foreign intervention, to
a pioneer of global development and one of the largest economies in the
world,” Code Pink claimed.
“Not only was it successful, but it succeeded through socialist
processes — something the Western capitalist order has been consistently
launching invasions and military coups across the world to prevent.
China wasn’t just a threat because it infringed on the U.S.’s role as
global hegemon — which had, for many years, allowed the U.S. to bomb and
murder innocent people around the world without consequence — but it
was also proof there was an alternative to the capitalist imperialist
greed that suffocates a majority of the Global South so that a few in
the West can prosper.”
Singham’s wife continued: “They continue to spread lies
like ‘China is about to invade Taiwan.’ When I ask people in China about
this, they look at me in shock. ‘How can you people in America think
that China would bomb its own people? Do people in the U.S. not
understand that even their president says there is one China, which
includes Taiwan?’ There are so many lies spread about China.”
“For years, we have been told that war with China is
‘inevitable.’ This year, people proved that narrative wrong. Let’s take a
look back at some of the best moments when people chose connection over
fear and fought back against the U.S. government’s push to manufacture
consent for war,” Code Pink wrote.
Code Pink’s past trips to China provided pro-CCP spin
Code Pink’s Kurt Pierce said in the late January video that
“I went on the Code Pink trip to China like in November 2024” and said
that “exploring China with comrades was really good for me.”
“Trump had just won [...] I was wondering a lot about
Chinese socialism, and, you know, I basically wanted to go to China to
find out if a lot of the things that I had suspected were true,” Pierce
said. “And overall, it really was amazing [...] just seeing, like,
really good infrastructure, and seeing really clean cities, and feeling
the socialist vibe and talking to other Chinese people and talking with
comrades, I don't know, for me, it was like kind of a life-changing
experience.”
Pierce added that “China is four times the population of
the U.S. so, like, so like, equilibrating [sic] myself to China in a
left wing way, like, actually makes me have more comrades in a way.”
Tighe Barry of Code Pink also said in the late January
webinar that he had also gone on a trip to China, and that “it was an
amazing trip.”
“There's just no doubt about it. … My eyes were opened. ..
You know, all these years that, you know, I've been fed this diet of
China bad, and they're, you know, the western societies are good,” Barry
said. “And when I got there and I saw the beauty and the openness of
the people and the loving nature of the people, I was just stunned.”
Barry also sought to downplay the CCP’s treatment of the
Uyghurs, saying, “They tell you about — that the leadership in China is
trying to take over the ethnicities of China. And I do not see, I didn't
see that at all. I saw them trying to get people involved in the
ethnics, like in Xinjiang, in Xinjiang, where we went there in the
western China.”
Far-left activist Dee Knight wrote in November 2023 about a Code Pink trip to China, with the Code Pink article
being titled, “Traveling to Prove China is Not Our Enemy." Knight’s
first conclusion was his blunt assertion that “1. Taiwan is part of
China.”
Knight also pointed to “dozens of U.S. military bases” in
South Korea and Japan where he alleged that “the abuse of modern-day
‘comfort women’ near the U.S. bases is really a continuation of Japan’s
shameful program of sexual slavery against Asian women.”
Knight also framed the U.S. as “invaders” during the Korean
War, claiming that “half a million Chinese volunteers helped Korean
liberation fighters repel the U.S. invaders and force the division of
Korea at the 38th parallel.”
Knight wrote a separate piece
— “Eyewitness Xinjiang” — the same month about the China trip, where
Knight sought to downplay concerns about China’s mistreatment of the
Uyghurs.
Code Pink’s CCP links draw scrutiny from Congress
Sen. Jim Banks, R-Ind., wrote a March 2025 letter to Attorney General Pam Bondi calling for an inquiry into Code Pink.
“I am concerned that Code Pink’s actions extend far beyond
anti-war protests, and that the group is actively engaging in propaganda
efforts to support the Chinese Communist Party’s foreign policy aims,
including by undermining U.S.-Israel relations and fueling antisemitism
on college campuses,” Banks wrote.
“I write to urge you to investigate Code Pink for potential
violations of the Foreign Agents Registration Act, due to growing
evidence of Code Pink’s deep connections with the CCP. … Code Pink also
receives significant funding and likely receives direction from agents
of the CCP.”
Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, sent an April 2025 letter
to Bondi and FBI Director Kash Patel, saying that “I write to you
regarding The People’s Forum and Code Pink’s potential obligation to
register under FARA based on reported connections with Neville Roy
Singham, the People’s Republic of China, and the Chinese Communist
Party.”
“What has DOJ done to assess whether The People’s Forum and
Code Pink should register under FARA, given their reported connections
with the communist Chinese government?” Grassley asked Bondi and Patel.
“Has DOJ sent a letter of inquiry or letter of determination to The
People’s Forum or Code Pink and their agents about the organizations’
efforts to influence U.S. policy?”
Megan Russell of Code Pink had argued
in April 2025 that “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.”
“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,” Russell contended. “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.”
Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., followed up with a November 2025 letter
to Bondi, writing that “I write to request that the Department of
Justice investigate Code Pink for potential violations of the Foreign
Agents Registration Act and material support to foreign terrorist
organizations.”
“Since 2017, Code Pink has received over $1.4 million,
representing approximately 25 percent of its total funding, from sources
linked to Neville Roy Singham,” Cotton said. “Singham is a tech
executive who married Code Pink co-founder Jodie Evans in 2017 [...] The
timing of this funding coincides with a documented shift in Code Pink's
position on China.”
The House Oversight Committee voted last month to subpoena Singham for information about this sprawling activist network, and the House Ways and Means Committee also sent letters demanding information from the Singham-linked People’s Forum and BreakThrough News last week.
