Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Nothing worth doing is easy.

Tick tock motherfuckers!

The revolution will be supervised.

Let’s finish the job.

A sufficient plurality of insane, greedy people can tank any democratic system ever devised, apparently.

Usually wrong but never in doubt

Accused of treason; bitches about the ratings. I am in awe.

If you’re pissed about Biden’s speech, he was talking about you.

I know this must be bad for Joe Biden, I just don’t know how.

Republicans are the party of chaos and catastrophe.

fuckem (in honor of the late great efgoldman)

We are aware of all internet traditions.

… pundit janitors mopping up after the GOP

I’ve spoken to my cat about this, but it doesn’t seem to do any good.

Since when do we limit our critiques to things we could do better ourselves?

🎶 Those boots were made for mockin’ 🎵

New McCarthy, same old McCarthyism.

Not all heroes wear capes.

Give the craziest people you know everything they want and hope they don’t ask for more? Great plan.

We cannot abandon the truth and remain a free nation.

Schmidt just says fuck it, opens a tea shop.

Russian mouthpiece, go fuck yourself.

Fuck these fucking interesting times.

I did not have this on my fuck 2022 bingo card.

You are here: Home / Past Elections / 2020 Elections / The Really Important Fact About Erik Prince That Everyone’s Coverage Keeps Missing: His Frontier Services Group is Funded By the People’s Republic of China

The Really Important Fact About Erik Prince That Everyone’s Coverage Keeps Missing: His Frontier Services Group is Funded By the People’s Republic of China

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The really important fact about Erik Prince that is not mentioned in The New York Times reporting that he has been using retired US and British spies, presumably human intelligence offers (HUMINTers), to teach James O’Keefe’s Project Veritas employees to be more effective is not that Prince founded and used to run Blackwater, nor that he’s Secretary of Education Betsy DeVoss’s brother, nor that he’s very close with the President and others in the administration and the reelection campaign. The really important fact is that Erik Prince’s Frontier Services Group, the company of military contractors that he runs, is owned by DVN  Holdings, which would ultimately make Prince its chairman. DVN Holdings is owned by Hong Kong investor Johnson Ko Chun and the Chinese International Trust Investment Corporation (Citic), which is a People’s Republic of China (PRC) owned investment fund. Johnson Ko Chun is also on the board of directors of Cambridge Analytica’s spin off Emerdata Ltd along with Rebekah Mercer, her sister Jennifer, as well as former senior officials from Cambridge Analytica. Emerdata is also still tied to the former Cambridge Analytica’s parent firm SCL Group.

The important fact that everyone keeps missing is that Erik Prince’s operations are funded by the People’s Republic of China. He is now their asset. If he is involved with O’Keefe’s merry band of political ratfuckers, then he is only involved so long as Xi and the PRC want him to be. The same goes for Emerdata. And anything else that Prince involves himself with. Despite having a long history of looting his own companies and skimming from his investors and backers, such as the Crown Prince of the United Arab Emirates, Prince’s financial backing from the PRC state owned Chinese International Trust Investment Corporation means that he works for the PRC and does so only as long as he advances their interests.

Xi and the PRC conduct their influence operations – from weaponizing diplomatic, information, economic, financial, intelligence, and legal power – as a form of 21st Century warfare very differently than Putin and the Russians do. Xi’s and the PRC are subtle and precise, where Putin and the Russians are brutish and imprecise. The role of Prince’s Frontier Service’s Group in advancing Xi’s One Belt, One Road initiative, which is definitely NOT in the United State’s strategic interests, is evidence of who is in charge in this relationship. Xi and the PRC call the shots. And while they might give Prince a lot of rope to conduct business in his usual dodgy manner, it should never forget that they are the hands on the end of that rope. If Prince is paying former intelligence officers to train Project Veritas employees who will then interfere in domestic politics in the US, then he is doing it because it suits not just his or his sister’s or the President’s purposes. He is doing it because it suits Xi’s and the PRC’s purposes. Who his paymasters are and how they exert control over their assets is the really important piece of information that everyone reporting on Prince’s connection to Project Veritas and commenting on the reporting is missing.

Open thread.

 

Reader Interactions

109Comments

  1. 1.

    David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch

    Even the liberal General McCaffrey:

    Trump is getting more rabid and erratic by the week. I have never in 50 years of experience seen a more vindictive, abusive, and ignorant public official. His behavior in public office is simply shameful. https://t.co/kZfWtqyt8n

    — Barry R McCaffrey (@mccaffreyr3) March 7, 2020

  2. 2.

    Omnes Omnibus

    Xi’s and the PRC are subtle and precise,

    And yet they hired Prince and teamed him with O’Keefe?

  3. 3.

    Cheryl Rofer

    Quick question, Adam, and then I’ll be doing something else for a while but will come back:

    I’ve lost track of Prince’s corporations and his place in them, at about the same time that I thought he was getting out of Ze, or whatever iteration of its name was. But my impression is that at some point, he separated himself from China and also from the management of his mercenary force to go into educating mercenaries.

    Can you give a more coherent account of all those changes?

  5. 5.

    West of the Rockies

    I’m guessing the press will pay more attention to disproven Burisma nonsense.  Oh, and both sides, right, Peter Baker?

  6. 6.

    Morzer

    Well, that’s just what we need – Xinnie the Pooh and his merry band of crackpot pranksters doing their best to keep the Plague Rat Donald in the White House.

  7. 7.

    NotMax

    AFAIK Prince remains obsessed with equipping and running his own private for-hire air force and these sorts of antics are lucrative sidelines.

  8. 8.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Cheryl Rofer: The company that Prince was running when the Emiratis busted him for stealing from them was called Frontier Services. When he went to work for the PRC via Ko Chun and CITIC, the vehicle was DVN Holdings. They then made him the director (Ko Chun is still the Executive Director and the Deputy Director) and reflagged DVN as Frontier Services Group. Prince, via Frontier Services Group, then bought a stake in a Chinese security school, which is what you’re thinking of. Here’s several good run downs of that:

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/world/wp/2018/05/04/feature/a-warrior-goes-to-china-did-erik-prince-cross-a-line/

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/feb/01/blackwater-founder-erik-prince-to-build-training-camp-in-chinas-xinjiang

    https://de.reuters.com/article/us-china-silkroad-companies/blackwater-founders-fsg-buys-stake-in-chinese-security-school-idUKKBN18Q0WR

    My understanding is they’re training “security personnel” as part of Xi’s Belt and Road initiative.

  11. 11.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Omnes Omnibus: You see anyone but me talking about it today when this news broke? You see any of the reporters even bothering to do the keyword search of “Erik Prince China”? The subtlety is this was done through shell corporations and fronts like Ko Chun. And I’m sure there are several that are hidden and can’t be found with simple keyword searches.

    ETA: I didn’t mean for the above to read so harshly. I get your point that Prince isn’t exactly a scalpel and O’Keefe is such a blunt object that he gives 2X4s a bad name. I know about this because I’ve spent the past several years tracking all of these connections, but the PRC has made all these acquisitions, infiltrated corporate boards, abused financial and legal processes to take over companies and then move all their intellectual assets to Hong Kong and the PRC proper, and nary a peep out of anyone. They are very, very, very good.

  13. 13.

    Adam L Silverman

    @NotMax: That’s where the skimming from the Emiratis come in. If you click the link in the post up top to The Intercept’s really long form reporting on him and how he runs his businesses (like an organized criminal), you’ll get all the details. It is a really well done article.

  14. 14.

    Bill Arnold

    Sheesh, that Erik Prince material is hours of reading and background searches. Thanks, though.

  15. 15.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Mary G: Except for AIPAC attendees.

    Also, that Bibi is definitely a jenius!

  17. 17.

    Frankensteinbeck

    Hey, Adam.  I’ve been wondering about this.  I saw some Israeli news that said the vote counting is finished and all the conservative parties together have 58 seats.  Do I understand that correctly as ‘Netenyahu is screwed’?

  18. 18.

    chris

    Sometimes Wikipedia makes me laugh. It opens with, “Eric Dean Prince is an American businessman.”

    Uh huh, you could say that…

    It also mentions that he interned with Dana Rohrabacher in the early 90s while he was in college. Adds a little Russian flavouring, no?

  22. 22.

    Mallard Filmore

    Prince’s financial backing from the PRC state owned Chinese International Trust Investment Corporation means that he works for the PRC and does so only as long as he advances their interests.

    Between Russia and China, whether they work together or at cross purposes, the desired result is the same. They each will be happy when the USA is neutered.

  23. 23.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Frankensteinbeck: Maybe. Bibi can’t form a government  because he doesn’t have 61 members of Knesset in his coalition. But Gantz cannot either unless he can either get Lieberman on board, which I don’t see happening unless Gantz jettisons the Arab Joint List, which makes no sense as the latter has 15 seats in Knesset and Lieberman’s party only has 7. So Gantz would be in worse shape if he did that as he’d lose a seat.

    This leaves Gantz either trying to form a coalition with Likud that requires Likud to jettison Bibi, which I don’t see them doing because, remember, for Bibi it is reelection and remaining prime minister or prison.

    Everyone is waiting to see if legislation can get pushed through making it impossible for someone under indictment to be named or remain prime minister. If this gets through, that takes Bibi out of the equation, and may break the logjam.

    The other issue is that if Lieberman’s anti-Bibi/anti-religious takeover of the Israeli government fan dance doesn’t produce a government this time and Israel has to go to a fourth election three months or so from now, he’s likely to loose a lot of his support. The logical place for that support to go is actually Likud, not Gantz’s center right to center left party.

    I honestly have no idea what is going to go on other than Bibi will try to do what he’s done the last time: drag the process of trying to form a government out as long as possible, use up all the mandated time while remaining prime minister of a caretaker government and  call new elections, which buys him another three months.

  24. 24.

    NotMax

    @Adam L. Silverman

    He’s a walking advertisement for a RICO indictment, shielded mainly by his connections with prominent political figures, on whom he no doubt keeps voluminous files of damning and semi-damning info.

  25. 25.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Gravenstone: 18,000 people attended AIPAC. Most from all over the US. They are now back in their home cities and towns. I told my mother that she couldn’t go to synagogue this morning until the synagogue worked out how they were going to deal with this because the rabbis, most of the board, and a decent chunk of the congregation all went. Until/unless they all self quarantine for 2 weeks and then disinfect the building as most of those folks went to services this morning, I will be pestering my mom not to go back.

  27. 27.

    Amir Khalid

    @NotMax:

    How does he equip a private air force? It was my impression that the only way to buy the really cool toys was via government-to-government deals. ETA: and that the really-cool-toy makers around the world are strictly regulated so they don’t do any deals off the books.

  30. 30.

    Mary G

    BREAKING: The White House overruled health officials who wanted to recommend that elderly and physically fragile Americans avoid flying on commercial airlines because of the new coronavirus, a federal official tells The Associated Press. https://t.co/bX0PayidMb— The Associated Press (@AP) March 8, 2020

  33. 33.

    Cheryl Rofer

    @Adam L Silverman: Thanks! I probably will not remember all of this, but it makes sense of the fragments I have, although my recollection that he separated from China is obviously incorrect. Probably all these maneuverings were intended to give that impression, or at least confuse most of us.

  34. 34.

    Jeffro

    How do China, Russia, and Saudi Arabia decide on any given day which of them is going to run our country‘s government?  Do they take turns? Does China get Mondays and Thursdays, Russia gets Wednesdays and Saturdays, and Saudi Arabia gets the rest?

    thanks trumpov

    thanks GOP enablers, traitors, and sellouts

  37. 37.

    different-church-lady

    Look, I was pretty convinced Trump was going to kill us all using nuclear winter, so the idea that he’s only going to kill half of us through mismanagement of a viral outbreak is something I’ll put in the pyrrhic win column.

  38. 38.

    cokane

    This blog is becoming more and more a font of misinformation. I’m sorry but you don’t know these facts: “The important fact that everyone keeps missing is that Erik Prince’s operations are funded by the People’s Republic of China. He is now their asset. If he is involved with O’Keefe’s merry band of political ratfuckers, then he is only involved so long as Xi and the PRC want him to be.”

    He is now their asset. He’s only involved with them so long as Xi wants.

    Where’s your evidence? I know that you have a background in these kinds of subjects. But you have no facts, unless you wanna present them, about *this* particular relationship.

  39. 39.

    cokane

    The facts are that Prince’s company also does biz with China (which you presented). And did biz with Project Veritas (which the breaking news story showed). But where are your facts that prove some linkage there?

  42. 42.

    Adam L Silverman

    @cokane: Prince’s company is owned and funded the the PRC owned investment fund CIVIT. They own it, their man Ko Chun oversees their interests in it and Prince. Just the financial backing alone establishes their monetary control over him.

  43. 43.

    Immanentize

    @cokane: Didn’t check out the links, did you?  How odd that defending Eric Prince is your Boogaloo.

    ETA I for one am always up for contrary or conflicting information so that I can come to my own decision. Please supply me with something solid? Rather than “nanny nanny boo boo?”

  44. 44.

    Rommie

    To paraphrase General Grant, I’m damned tired of hearing about what <insert not-friendly foreign power here> is doing to us, I’d like to hear what we are going to do to them.

  46. 46.

    Immanentize

    @Rommie: That is really a piss poor paraphrase. The real deal:

    Oh, I am heartily tired of hearing about what Lee is going to do. Some of you always seem to think he is suddenly going to turn a double somersault, and land in our rear and on both of our flanks at the same time. Go back to your command, and try to think what we are going to do ourselves, instead of what Lee is going to do.

  48. 48.

    Adam L Silverman

    @rikyrah: You’re welcome. I would very much like to reach a point where I do not have to do posts on this type of thing anymore. But given the state of US politics, international politics, and the way the news media often fails to provide the important context, I doubt that is going to happen any time soon.

  49. 49.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Another Scott: I am aware. I’ve read it. I have it bookmarked. But for some reason it kept locking up all of my various browsers this evening, so I decided not to use it as a link.

  50. 50.

    Immanentize

    @Adam L Silverman: I think it is pretty clear you need to do these posts for the foreseeable future.  I love reading them!  I do hate getting into the comments though.  Which is why I hope you will persist.

  52. 52.

    HRA

    CNN now has an article that says some of the crew on the ship near CA may have jumped ship.

  53. 53.

    Adam L Silverman

    @HRA: They’re going to try to do the Alcatraz triathlon aren’t they?

    Though I guess they’ll have substituted jump for dig…

    The Really Important Fact About Erik Prince That Everyone's Coverage Keeps Missing: His Frontier Services Group is Funded By the People's Republic of China

  54. 54.

    Another Scott

    @Adam L Silverman: The BBC tonight just had a story about a newborn in China that got the coronavirus.  From its mother, who along with the rest of her family, were all infected.  The story was about the infant being released from the hospital (after 2 weeks? not sure about that).

    If it’s this infant, then it was apparently in the hospital for a month.

    Bibi – Super Genius.

    (sigh)

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  58. 58.

    ?BillinGlendaleCA

    Hmmm, that’s interesting.  If I access the site via Edge setup as an app it tells me I’m posting too fast, If I just access as another tab in Edge the comment will post.

  60. 60.

    Adam L Silverman

    @HRA: It’s actually a t-shirt or a sweatshirt. They sell them all over San Francisco. I have one. As a criminologist I thought it was funny.

  61. 61.

    Adam L Silverman

    Thoughts and prayers!!!!

  67. 67.

    Jerzy Russian

    @Adam L Silverman:   Looking back, it seems you did ask “what kind” instead of “who”.   Unfortunately I cannot answer that, since I don’t know who Colby is or who her parents are.

  69. 69.

    Aleta

    In addition to the coverage by the Post for the last two years (Emily Rauhala and Marc Fisher) that Adam linked, Bloomberg Quint has written about this:

    (From Feb 2019), Blackwater Mercenary Prince Has a New $1 Trillion Chinese Boss
    Beijing’s CITIC tightens grip on his young Hong Kong company

    Since (Prince) became chairman of Frontier Services Group in Hong Kong five years ago, CITIC, his mainland benefactor, has slowly cemented its grip on the firm. Prince stepped down as FSG Chairman in December to make way for a new boss from the conglomerate, which has amassed a bigger stake than Prince’s 9 percent.

    (Gives a timeline of “China’s Growing Role” in FSG, from 2013 when he met with Chang Zhenming (chairman of CITIC) in Beijing to Jan 2019.)

    The Xinjiang (signing) ceremony (to build the training center) is more evidence that Prince is “serving the national interest of China, which competes directly with the U.S.,” said Sean McFate, a National Defense University professor who once built a private army in Liberia while working for U.S. military contractor DynCorp International.

    CITIC, for its part, has already been tightening its grip on FSG. In December, CITIC’s Chang replaced Prince as chairman. Prince is now one of three deputy chairmen, along with Ko and Luo Ning, a CITIC executive and graduate of the People’s Liberation Army Institute of Communication Command.

    FSG last year raised $107 million via CITIC and other investors. The Chinese company now owns 26 percent of FSG.

    …

    Once headed by Prince, FSG is now stacked with Chinese investors and leadership

    (Chart of the 8 top Chinese officeholders and stakeholders in FSG, along with Prince, and the 3 former US ‘advisors’ in the 2018 Post story.)

     

    Several Americans who were brought in to get FSG off the ground have departed. William Fallon, a retired four-star Navy admiral, and Gregg Smith, a former Marine who was an adviser for Blackwater, left after Ko and Luo presented plans at a 2016 board meeting to provide security to Chinese companies on the Belt and Road Initiative….

    Fallon and Smith declined to comment. While a 2016 company filing says they resigned, an FSG spokesman said the two were fired for performance.

    Fallon is interviewed in the 2018 Post article by Fisher and Rauhala that Adam linked.

  71. 71.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Aleta: I am aware of that article. It is excellent. It is also behind a paywall and locked up two different browsers on my MacBook Pro while I was writing the post.

  72. 72.

    Another Scott

    In other news, Reuters:

    WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A U.S. judge said Amazon.com Inc (AMZN.O) is likely to succeed on a key argument of its challenge to the U.S. Department of Defense’s decision to award cloud computing deal worth up to $10 billion to Microsoft Corp. (MSFT.O)

    The opinion by U.S. Court of Federal Claims Judge Patricia Campbell-Smith was unsealed on Friday. On Feb. 13, she issued an order blocking work on the contract pending resolution of Amazon’s court challenge.

    Amazon contends the contract was awarded to Microsoft because of improper influence by President Donald Trump.

    […]

    Donnie is going to be bigly upset.

    Yay!

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  73. 73.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Aleta: I also know Sean McFate. His ex-wife used to be my boss. The strangest job interview I ever had was interviewing for a position in his department at National Defense University. He asked a question about the leadership at my current program, specifically referencing the program manager (one of my bosses) and the director of social science (his then soon to be ex-wife and my other boss). Since I had no idea what his colleagues did and did not know about what was going on in his marriage, I just referred to her by her title and last name as if they weren’t married and barely acquainted.

  77. 77.

    joel hanes

    @Bill Arnold:

    Matt Schlapp shook hands with one of the people who have tested positive.

    Matt Schlapp also shook hands with Donald Trump, on stage.

    Not sure of the order of events.

    Rooting for injuries.

  79. 79.

    trollhattan

    A suburban Sac school district has cancelled classes next week due to virus scourge. Sac City school district has sent communications indicating classes as usual next week. The twist–said suburb, Elk Grove Unified is the state’s fifth largest. Sac is 13.

  83. 83.

    joel hanes

    @Adam L Silverman:

    So no one will tell him.   That’s what he demands from the people around him, and he fires anyone who tries to tell him things he doesn’t want to hear.

  91. 91.

    Mary G

    This is no way to run a railroad:

    Kari Kolstoe is desperate. She has stage 4 cancer, (weakened immune system) & is onboard the Grand Princess Cruise-ship with 21 coronavirus patients. The ship is off the N. Calif. coast. Kari has no symptoms but needs to get off to receive chemo. Cc: @kevincramer @gavinnewsom pic.twitter.com/2OvUiAMtuO— David Begnaud (@DavidBegnaud) March 7, 2020

    Great news: Kari shared me this text that she received a short time ago: "Senator @kevincramer heard back from @VP Pence. You have been flagged as a priority. He's hoping for some movement Monday." I'll stay on it. Her life depends on it. https://t.co/pvo7rh90Xa— David Begnaud (@DavidBegnaud) March 8, 2020

    Honest to Dog. You shouldn’t have to have CBS tweet at your senator to talk to the vp to maybe get some help in two days.
    And I think I may have to give up twitter. Between the people blaming this lady for taking a cruise with cancer and the massive effort to claim Joe Biden has dementia I am ready to go off. I probably blocked 50 “people” in half an hour.

  94. 94.

    Mary G

    Adam, if you are still around can you take my last comment out of moderation? I abused the number of allowed links embedding two tweets.

  96. 96.

    lumpkin

    The United States of America is becoming a giant corpse that all the various magats around the globe are now feeding on.

  98. 98.

    Mart

    1. @West of the Rockies: Always last one to the  party, more of an Adam question; what is up with Coffer Black, former CIA, and long time VP and President of various Eric Prince entitities being on the Burisma board; I believe now, and formerly with Hunter. Also, who are the assholes who wrote this shitty script?
  99. 99.

    Raven Onthill

    Traitors. Why does it have to be traitors, and why is treason so much of a thing? (And yes, Mx. Pedantic, this may not be technically treason, but it sure isn’t loyalty.)

  103. 103.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @Adam L Silverman: Cue the Barry Manilow karaoke tape:

    Its name is RICO, it brings the hammer!

    That whole crowd goes off to the slammer….

    Would that it were so (ψ)…

  108. 108.

    J R in WV

     

    Thanks Adam! Your posts are full of intrigue and stuff the Masters of the Universe wish to be more secret. This also fills the threads with delightfully cheesy puns and equally interesting comments.

    What is Colby’s last name? Are we sure Colby is Jewish?

Comments are closed.