Research Dossier · 20 Sept 2026
Research Dossier · 20 Sept 2026
Singulariti Research Dossier · Prepared 20 September 2026
Impact, tools, religion, and the civil-war question. A graded research dossier in which every claim carries an evidence label — DOCUMENTED, CORROBORATED, INFERRED or SPECULATIVE — and a source grade, from primary court filings down to flagged speculation.
Read the full dossier →Section 01
These numbers measure what happened to American trust and cohesion — not who caused it. Attribution comes in Sections 02–06. Every stat below is Grade A: an official survey table with its URL in the full dossier.
| Institution | 2004 | 2026 | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Church / organized religion | 53% | 33% | −20 |
| Newspapers | 30% | 17% | −13 |
| Television news | 30% | 14% | −16 |
| Congress | 30% | 9% | −21 |
| U.S. Supreme Court | 46% | 27% | −19 |
| The presidency | 52% | 27% | −25 |
| Police | 64% | 45% | −19 |
| Medical system | 44% | 28% | −16 |
| Public schools | 41% | 27% | −14 |
| Military | 75% | 61% | −14 |
| Higher education (first asked 2015) | 57% | 38% | −19 |
| Big technology companies (first asked 2020) | 32% | 20% | −12 |
Trust in the mass media "a great deal / fair amount" fell from 44% (Sept 2004) to 28% (Sept 2025). Those who trust it "none at all": 16% → 34%. More Americans now trust the press not at all than trust it at all — and the audience moved from a shared broadcast to a personalised feed in the same period.
Gallup, Media Use and Evaluation, 2 Oct 2025 · Grade A72% of Republicans and 63% of Democrats say the other party's members are "more immoral" than other Americans (2016: 47% / 35%). "Very unfavorable" of the other party: 62% R / 54% D — under 25% in either party in 1994. Unfavorable toward both parties: 6% (1994) → 27% (2022).
Pew Research Center, 9 Aug 2022, N = 6,174 · Grade AChristian share of adults: 78% (2007) → 71% (2014) → 62% (2023–24). Unaffiliated: 29%. The most religious quartile leans Republican 61%; the least religious quartile 27% — a 49-point gap among White adults. Pew's wording: the decline was "much more pronounced among Democrats."
Pew Religious Landscape Study, 26 Feb 2025, N = 36,908 · Grade AA church that is 20 points less trusted than in 2004 and partisan-sorted is softer ground for wedge messaging than one that is trusted and mixed. The data are Pew's and Gallup's; the inference is the dossier's.
InferredSection 02
Three baseline claims — a "CASS 18-page plan, 2015", a "China Foundation" indictment (April 2024), and a CGTN–Chicago Tribune deal — could not be located by targeted search. I did not find it and I will not quote it. None of the three carries any conclusion below. What was fetched is stronger: Chinese-language texts on CCP-system platforms in which the authors describe how to reach the American public. Translations are the dossier's; the Chinese is quoted so it can be checked.
"美国民众正是我国对美国际传播所能发挥影响的关键领域。"
"The American public is precisely the key field where our country's communication toward the U.S. can exert influence."
Lü Jie modelled eight waves of the Cooperative Congressional Election Study (2010–2020) to find which American attitudes toward China are movable — about a 14-point favorability gain when any one of three attitude dimensions flips. Prescriptions: lean more on internet media; "minimise ideological coloring"; work through "relatively neutral online news media."
fjlib.net, 22–23 June 2021 · Grade A · DOCUMENTED"Quora、Reddit等也是尚待利用的重要渠道。" / "精准挖掘…意见领袖，激活同辈效应。"
"Quora, Reddit and the like are important channels yet to be exploited." / "Precisely identify… opinion leaders and activate the peer effect."
Gen Z and millennials are about 40% of U.S. voters; only about 6% of American Gen Z trust the U.S. government. Use overseas Chinese Gen Z as intermediaries; personal accounts to "evade" platform restrictions on official propaganda; reward mechanisms for cooperating opinion leaders.
cssn.cn, Guo Yi, 2 Aug 2024 · Grade A · DOCUMENTEDSteelman. Every government does public diplomacy. Both texts are scholars' analyses, not directives, and neither names division as a goal — they prove intent to persuade, not to divide. Where it breaks: paying opinion leaders and evading propaganda labels through personal accounts is covert influence by definition, and the DOJ case below shows the same tactics run by police with the stated aim of division.
DOJ, 17 Apr 2023: 40 officers of China's National Police charged. The Ministry of Public Security's "912 Special Project Working Group" created thousands of fake personas; U.S. Attorney Breon Peace: propaganda "whose sole purpose is to sow divisions within the United States." It also recruited sympathetic Americans as unwitting agents.
justice.gov, 17 Apr 2023 · Grade A · DOCUMENTEDOrdered to register under FARA (WSJ, 2018); registered 1 Feb 2019; designated a foreign mission Feb 2020; its director recalled in March 2019. The U.S. legally treats CGTN as a foreign-government agent. The Tribune deal and the OIG audit were not verified and carry no weight here.
WSJ 18 Sept 2018 · NYT 28 Feb 2019 · CORROBORATEDIntroduced 5 Mar 2024; passed the House 13 Mar 2024, 352–65. Congress found ByteDance's control of TikTok's recommendation engine a national-security risk requiring divestiture. A feed reaching about half of young Americans is the industrial version of "lean on internet media."
congress.gov, H.R. 7521 · Grade A · DOCUMENTED (risk finding)"What once came through Confucius Institutes now flows through new channels—less visible but no less strategic." Followed by the subnational hearing of 25 June 2026 — economic espionage and CCP influence on governors and legislatures (witnesses Shedd, Lucci, Yang).
House Select Committee, 2025 report & hearing · Grade ASection 03
"To start a war, the U.S. reactionaries must first attack the American people.""All reactionaries are paper tigers." The founding text of CCP strategy separates the U.S. state from the American people — and treats the people as the field on which the state is defeated. Lü Jie's 2021 "key field" sentence is the same idea in survey dress.Mao Zedong, "Talk with the American Correspondent Anna Louise Strong", Aug 1946 · marxists.org · Grade A
The doctrine term: 认知域作战 — cognitive domain operations. The objective: 制脑权, "mind superiority," parallel to air or sea superiority. Zeng Huafeng (National University of Defense Technology), PLA Daily 2017, names four tactics: manipulating perception; cutting off historical memory; changing the paradigm of thinking by targeting elites; deconstructing symbols. NDU's Science of Military Strategy (2015) treats Twitter/Facebook-driven "color revolutions" as the model of what social media does to a state. Strategic Support Force Base 311 is the PLA's psychological-operations unit. A June 2019 PLA article calls for replacing manual sockpuppets with AI "intelligent public opinion guidance."
Jamestown China Brief, 6 Sept 2019, quoting PLA originals on 81.cn · Grade A via CPRC-state money enters a U.S. institution. Tsinghua–Berkeley Shenzhen Institute: over $220M from the Shenzhen government. Georgia Tech Shenzhen: $8.5M startup funding, Georgia Tech contributing $28,000. (Select Committee, 11 Sept 2025.)
The story is written so the target does not recognise it as foreign. Renmin 2021: "minimise ideological coloring"; use "relatively neutral online news media".
The frame is placed via personas or recruited voices. MPS 912 Group: thousands of fake personas, unwitting American recruits. (DOJ, 17 Apr 2023.)
State accounts boost the seeded voices. NYT, 5 Aug 2023: Chinese state media retweeted Singham-network accounts at least 122 times since Feb 2020.
The frame becomes a local position with no foreign fingerprint. CGTN America ran as a Washington news channel for years before the FARA compulsion of 2019.
INFERRED. Each stage is documented with its own example; that the five run as one deliberate cycle is the dossier's reading of the Renmin and CSSN texts, which describe stages 2–4 as a programme.
Section 04
Sixteen tools, each with a mechanism, a dated documented example, and an evidence grade. Two rows are honestly marked NOT VERIFIED THIS JOB rather than padded.
A PRC city or university funds a U.S.–PRC institute; IP and talent flow east. TBSI $220M from Shenzhen; 8 of 21 named universities closed institutes, 13 named as failing to act.
Select Committee, 11 Sept 2025Documented · AUnder-reporting of foreign money (Sec. 117). 19 campus investigations, 2019–21, surfaced $6.5 billion in undisclosed foreign gifts.
Select Committee, p. 19Documented · AWolf Amendment: NASA-funded researchers working with PRC entities without an FBI-certified waiver. Grassley/Moolenaar letter to FBI and NASA, 12 Feb 2026 — the Wendy Mao / HPSTAR case.
Pub. L. 112-10; reaffirmed P.L. 119-74Documented · ALanguage centres as foothold, now replaced by scholarship and visa channels. The Chinese government "admitted that these institutes are a part of China's overall propaganda apparatus."
FBI letter, p. 1; Select Committee, p. 18Documented · AConfucius Classrooms, PRC-published textbooks, state textbook reviews (Texas). Baseline item.
Not verified this jobAn adversary-controlled recommendation engine reaching about half of young Americans. A risk finding by Congress, not proven manipulation.
H.R. 7521, House 352–65, 13 Mar 2024Documented · ADiaspora messaging under PRC censorship. The Zoom "Company-1" censorship in the 2023 DOJ case is the analog.
Inferred (A analog)A state police unit runs fake accounts "to sow divisions within the United States."
DOJ, 40 MPS officers charged, 17 Apr 2023Documented · AIdentify, pay and shield friendly voices; evade propaganda labels via personal accounts. Singham network: ~$1.8M to Maku Group (Rubio, 2023).
CSSN 2 Aug 2024 (intent); via Influence WatchDocumented intent · Corroborated executionProvincial and municipal ties to governors and legislatures. 26-AG letter: "They have even paid for American politicians, such as California Governor Gavin Newsom, to travel to China."
26-AG letter, 16 Dec 2025Documented allegationHuawei/ZTE in U.S. networks. Not re-fetched within the budget.
Not verified this jobPressure on Chinese-Americans; CSSA foreign-mission designation letter, 5 Mar 2026; the DOJ transnational-repression case.
Select Committee letter; DOJ 2023Documented · AEF-China — "supervised by the National Development and Reform Commission," ~80 Beijing staff — with ~$1.5M to RMI, ICCT, ITDP, NRDC. A full-text search of the 22-page AG letter for "faith", "church", "religio", "Christian", "Catholic", "Evangelical": zero hits.
26-AG letter, 16 Dec 2025Documented allegationA Shanghai-based donor funds U.S. protest and media groups echoing PRC lines: Code Pink, People's Forum, ANSWER, Tricontinental, No Cold War. W&M: $20M via GS DAF; DOJ grand jury, July 2026.
NYT 5 Aug 2023; Rubio 9 Aug 2023; W&M 2025–26Corroborated · CA state broadcaster running as a U.S. news channel. CGTN America: FARA registration 1 Feb 2019, foreign mission Feb 2020. The Tribune deal: not verified.
WSJ 2018; State Dept 2020Corroborated · CSection 05
"Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world… It is the opium of the people." (Marx, 1843–44.) Xi first used "Sinicization of religion" at the May 2015 Central United Front Work conference and made it policy at the April 2016 National Conference on Religious Work: "the essence of managing religious activities is public work." Revised Regulations on Religious Affairs (eff. 1 Feb 2018): religion "shall not be dominated by foreign force." The State Administration for Religious Affairs moved under the United Front Work Department in March 2018; the April 2018 white paper counts about 200 million believers.
DOCUMENTED · A/B — religion is a United Front portfolio, a management-and-influence functionThe Provisional Agreement on the Appointment of Bishops (22 Sept 2018) was extended "for four years" — the largest Christian body has for eight years accepted a confidential arrangement giving Beijing a role in choosing bishops. The text has never been published. A party that runs religion as United Front work and holds a bishop deal with Rome has shown both appetite and ability to work inside a Christian hierarchy.
Holy See Press Office, 22 Oct 2024 · DOCUMENTED (A); the inference labeledEF-China → RMI, ICCT, ITDP, NRDC (~$1.5M) — alleged by 26 state AGs; secular groups. Singham network → Code Pink, People's Forum, ANSWER Coalition, Tricontinental, No Cold War — "hundreds of millions" (NYT); secular Marxist groups. Faith leaders or religious organisations receiving CCP-adjacent money: none found. No A, B or C source fetched names a U.S. church, denomination, seminary or faith leader as a recipient. A null result, reported as one.
DOCUMENTED as allegation (not adjudicated) · CORROBORATEDCCI's Richard Wiles: "never received a single cent of foreign funding." The AG letter is a request by 26 Republican AGs, not a finding; Singham says he is "solely guided" by "long-held personal views." An American Marxist funding American Marxists is legal and old. Where it breaks: EF-China's supervision by the NDRC is a structural fact about a Chinese state organ, and a federal grand jury (July 2026) means prosecutors think the question is worth asking under oath.
E&E News, 19 Dec 2025 · Grade CDOCUMENTED: (1) the CCP runs religion as a United Front instrument at home; (2) it holds a live bishop agreement with Rome; (3) American religiosity is partisan-sorted and church trust fell 20 points; (4) a Chinese police unit was charged with running personas to "sow divisions" among Americans. None is a documented case of CCP money or personas targeting American religious division specifically.
DocumentedA state that publishes targeting studies of the American public, runs division-seeding persona networks, and treats religion as an influence surface has every incentive to use the fault lines Pew measures. Reasonable. Not documented. Say "inferred" on air.
InferredNo fetched evidence connects any CCP actor to any named American church controversy or faith-based campaign. Honest framing: "we have the motive and the tool; we do not have the fingerprint."
SpeculativeSection 06
ESTABLISHED — every item below is A/B and was fetched, not recalled:
A state whose founding strategist said the people must be attacked first, whose army has a doctrine for attacking cognition, whose police were caught seeding division, and whose academy publishes opinion-leader recruitment guidance is running division as strategy. The inference joins four documented facts with one assumption — that police, PLA authors and CASS authors execute a shared line. In a Leninist party-state that is a strong assumption. It is still an assumption.
No fetched CCP document uses "civil war" or 内战, or sets American armed internal conflict as an objective. The claim stays SPECULATIVE and should be put as a question, not a finding.
The Renmin and CSSN texts want Americans to like China, not to fight each other. Most of Section 01 has domestic drivers: cable economics, primaries, platform business models, religiosity sorting by party. Every verified funding case is an allegation, an investigation, or a wealthy American's legal philanthropy; no conviction on a division charge exists. Universities took Shenzhen's money because public funding fell.
The DOJ complaint does not say the 912 Group benefited from division; it says the group's purpose was to sow it. That is engineering, charged by name in federal court. "Evade platform limits on official propaganda" is not the behaviour of an actor content to be liked openly. A doctrine of "deconstructing symbols" and "cutting off historical memory" is a doctrine for dissolving a shared story — the precondition of division whether or not the word is used.
Beijing's motive, doctrine, tools and one caught-in-the-act case of sowing division are established; coordinated strategy is inferred, not proven; a civil-war plan is speculative, with no document behind it.
Section 07
Eight indicators, each tied to a documented mechanism above and written so it can be checked — and a miss admitted.
Eight of twenty-one named universities have already shut institutes; the Committee names the remaining thirteen (Duke, Arizona, Delaware, Drake, Houston, Kean, Miami, NYU, North Alabama, Northeastern State, Portland State, Stony Brook, Trine). Watch for closures framed as "strategic review" with no mention of the Committee.
"What once came through Confucius Institutes now flows through new channels." Watch China Scholarship Council placements and visa pathways at the same schools, and Wolf Amendment waiver data once the FBI answers the 12 Feb 2026 letter.
H.R. 7521 compels divestiture. Watch whether the algorithm — not just the corporate shell — changes hands, and whether any independent feed audit is published. No audit means the feed stays contested regardless of the press release.
The AG letter, the Singham grand jury and the W&M subpoenas are all FARA-adjacent. Watch for the first indictment of a 501(c)(3) officer under FARA, and the defence: "American philanthropy, legally given." Both sides will be partly right.
CSSN 2024 prescribes personal accounts, opinion leaders, Reddit, Quora and rewards; the PLA in 2019 called for AI "public opinion guidance." Expect fewer bot farms and more small accounts that argue like your cousin. Watch platform reports for takedowns described as "authentic-seeming" or "AI-generated personas."
The documented pattern is state-linked amplification of American voices — 122 state-media retweets of American accounts. If a religion-targeted case emerges, expect a U.S. pastor or progressive faith activist boosted by state-linked accounts, not a Chinese account preaching.
Every unsealing so far (FARA orders 2018, 912 Group 2023) revealed activity years older than the filing. The unverified Winters lead — a Tsinghua CISS 2024 elections study and a PLA NDU 2023 "brain-control" article — points to where the next one likely lands: voter-data and AI persona work from 2023–24.
The 2018 and 2024 texts were never released. A third secret renewal would be a documented pattern of a Christian hierarchy accepting Beijing's terms in the dark.
The rule: no framing without a named mechanism attached.
1 John 4:1 — "test the spirits." Mechanism: stage 02, frame — "minimise ideological coloring," "relatively neutral" outlets, personal accounts to evade labels. The test is procedural: before carrying a claim, ask who benefits if you believe it, who paid for the outlet, and whether the primary document exists. This dossier practised it: three baseline claims failed the test and were set aside rather than repeated.
Light-within, self-knowledge. Mechanism: PLA "deconstructing symbols" and "cutting off historical memory." An operation works on people whose identity lives in the symbols under attack. A watcher whose centre is interior, who knows what he believes and why before the feed tells him, has less surface to grab. Not withdrawal; refusing to let the outer be the anchor. Gallup's 33% church confidence and Pew's partisan-sorted religiosity say the outer religious institutions are themselves contested ground. Anchor inside, then engage.
Mechanism: all of Section 02 — the Renmin "lean on internet media," the TikTok finding, 49% on daily internet news, CSSN targeting Reddit and Quora. The PLA word is 制脑权, mind superiority, and superiority in any domain means controlling where the other side looks. Decide in advance where attention goes each day; treat an unplanned two hours in a feed as a lost engagement, not a rest.
Mechanism: stage 04, amplify. Division content produces an emotional state — contempt for the other party, which Pew measures at 62–72% — and feeds it. Entrainment is a system driven to an external rhythm; the counter is a self-generated one. A deliberately held state before and after political or religious content, so the outrage the content is built to produce is not carried into the next conversation. That contempt is the payload is Pew's finding; that state-linked accounts amplify contempt-producing voices is the NYT's.
DOCUMENTED when you have the filing. INFERRED when you read the pattern and show the reading. SPECULATIVE when you have a suspicion and say so. The CCP's doctrine depends on the target not making that distinction. Making it is the whole defence.