Chinese groups named Elaine Chao to advisory posts overlapping Cabinet service, report says

Chinese government and United Front-linked organizations named Elaine Chao, the wife of Kentucky Republican Sen. Mitch McConnell, to several advisory and honorary positions that overlapped with her U.S. Cabinet service, according to an investigation published Tuesday by the Daily Caller News Foundation. Ms. Chao, who married Mr. McConnell in 1993, served as secretary of labor under President George W. Bush and as secretary of transportation during President Trump's first term before resigning in January 2021. She served on the board of EV charging company ChargePoint from 2021 until July 2026, and is now a distinguished fellow at the Hudson Institute, a Washington think tank. The DCNF reported, based on its translations of Chinese government and state media, that Ms. Chao — whose Chinese name is Zhao Xiaolan — was named to at least four such positions since 2008, including three tied to arms of the United Front Work Department, an agency that a Congressional research arm says Beijing uses to advance its foreign-policy goals and gain access to sensitive foreign technology. A companion body, the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, has likewise been flagged by analysts as a coordinating vehicle for the CCP's influence operations abroad. Several of these appointments rest chiefly on the DCNF's own translations of the underlying Chinese-language material and have not been independently verified elsewhere. Two of the reported appointments do have independent contemporaneous documentation, according to the DCNF: a 2009 designation as an international adviser to the Wuhan municipal government, announced at the time by Chinese state media, and a 2012 advisory title with the Jiading branch of the All-China Federation of Returned Overseas Chinese, also reported contemporaneously. The DCNF said the pattern traces to 2004, when Ms. Chao, then labor secretary, exchanged Christmas cards with two Jiading-based United Front Work Department arms. Both later named her to advisory titles that reportedly overlapped with her transportation department tenure. Her late sister, Angela Chao, and her father, shipping executive James S.C. Chao, were also reported to have received similar Chinese government and United Front-linked titles. The outlet reported that Ms. Chao did not disclose any of the positions during her January 2017 Senate confirmation hearing for transportation secretary, which required nominees to list all outside positions held in the preceding decade. Patrick O'Connor, a spokesman for Ms. Chao and her family's shipping firm, Foremost Group, disputed that characterization. 'She has never held a position with a foreign government,' Mr. O'Connor said, calling the DCNF's reporting racially insulting given Ms. Chao's decades of American public service. Outside experts took a harder line on the appointments regardless of how they are characterized. Jacqueline Deal, an advisory board member at State Armor, a nonprofit focused on countering Chinese Communist Party influence, said such ties would be disqualifying for far lower office than a Cabinet post. Cheryl Yu, a China studies fellow at the Jamestown Foundation, said the returned-overseas-Chinese federation that named Ms. Chao an adviser is known to recruit prominent diaspora figures with access and influence. A former Royal Canadian Mounted Police intelligence official, Scott McGregor, argued that such ties raise counterintelligence concerns independent of whether any specific favor can be traced. Questions about Ms. Chao's China ties first surfaced during her 2001 Labor Department nomination and resurfaced this summer after Mr. McConnell was hospitalized in June while Ms. Chao was traveling in China. Mr. McConnell's office declined to comment on the DCNF's findings. This article was constructed with the assistance of artificial intelligence and published by a member of The Washington Times' AI News Desk team. The contents of this report are based solely on The Washington Times' original reporting, wire services, and/or other sources cited within the report. For more information, please read our AI policy or contact Steve Fink, Director of Artificial Intelligence, at sfink@washingtontimes.com The Washington Times AI Ethics Newsroom Committee can be reached at aispotlight@washingtontimes.com.