How Journalists Helped Fuel Communist China’s Power

Clear Facts

• Three American journalists promoted Chinese communist narratives in the 20th century.
• The Chinese Communist Party continues to seek foreign media allies today.
• Left-leaning Western influencers played a pivotal role in elevating the Communist regime.

Xi Van Fleet, an activist and survivor of Mao’s Cultural Revolution, has long warned about the infiltration of socialist ideology in American society.

Her upcoming book, co-authored with Chinese dissident Yu Jie, explores the role of U.S. academics, writers, and politicians in empowering Communist China.

The book highlights three Americans—Edgar Snow, Agnes Smedley, and Anna Louise Strong—who are celebrated in China as the “Three S’s.”

Each significantly advanced the Chinese communist cause, with Snow viewed as especially influential.

In 1984, China honored the trio by founding the Smedley-Strong-Snow Society and issuing commemorative postage stamps.

Smedley and Strong’s openly Communist ties led to skepticism in the West, while Snow’s supposed impartiality made his reporting more persuasive and misleading.

Currently, the Chinese Communist Party is actively recruiting foreign journalists to repeat this pattern, establishing the Edgar Snow Newsroom to promote its narratives globally.

During the tumultuous 1930s, America’s leftward turn and disillusionment with capitalism helped make these narratives especially appealing to Western audiences.

Edgar Snow even reported Mao Zedong’s interest in President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal policies, highlighting an ideological synergy between American progressivism and Chinese communism.

As American society sought alternatives to capitalism, writings promoting Chinese Communism found a receptive audience.

Snow’s 1936 visit to China and interviews with Mao marked the start of active CCP efforts to cultivate support among American elites—including journalists, officials, and business leaders.

Some claim these influencers were unwittingly deceived, but Xi Van Fleet and Yu Jie argue many were complicit, seeing only what fit their political ideals.

These left-leaning writers—from liberal sympathizers to outspoken communists—legitimized a regime that caused immense suffering while remaining insulated from its consequences.

“Words can kill, and the pen can be as deadly as any bullet.”

This period serves as a reminder of the danger of blindly promoting authoritarian systems, emphasizing the long-term cost of ideological naivete.

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