The primary philanthropic arm of the influential Rockefeller family has given millions of dollars to arms of the Chinese government as well as organizations with strong links to the Chinese Communist Party.
Between April 2020 and August 2024, the Rockefeller Brothers Fund donated $7.4 million to organizations that are either part of the Chinese government, led by members of the CCP, or engaged in partnerships with China, according to a Washington Examiner analysis of grant records. The bulk of the Rockefeller Brothers Fund’s philanthropic activity in China went toward assisting Beijing in meeting its goals for green energy production and transition.
While most of the Rockefeller Brothers Fund’s Chinese grants were earmarked for projects within China, a handful went to support the country’s global influence operations.
The Foreign Environmental Cooperation Center, part of China’s Ministry of Ecology and Environment, received $400,000 from the Rockefeller Brothers Fund between 2021 and 2022 “for capacity building for green development of Chinese overseas investment.” A report released in October by the Government Accountability Office, the watchdog agency of the United States government, found that China uses its global infrastructure investment strategy, known as the “Belt and Road Initiative,” to strengthen its “global standing and influence.”
FORD FOUNDATION PAID CCP ALLIES MILLIONS TO AID CHINA’S GLOBAL INFLUENCE OPERATIONS
The Society of Entrepreneurs and Ecology Foundation, a private foundation that has partnered with the Chinese government on environment-related initiatives and has been granted awards from the CCP for its activities, has received more than $2.4 million from the Rockefeller Brothers Fund since April 2020. Similar to China’s Ministry of Ecology and Environment, the SEE Foundation seeks to carry out a “green ‘Belt and Road’ initiative” by mobilizing Chinese entrepreneurs.
The founding chairman of the SEE Foundation, Wu Jinglian, worked for China’s State Council. The State Council is the “executive body of the supreme organ of state power” in China, according to China’s National People’s Congress. In addition to receiving accolades from the Chinese government, the foundation also touts on its website that the “Central Committee of the Communist Youth League” granted it the “Mother River Award.”
The Ford Foundation, another large left-of-center charity, has also spent millions helping Chinese government entities carry out global infrastructure projects.
The Rockefeller Brothers Fund, which controls about $1.4 billion in assets, was founded in 1940 by John D. Rockefeller Jr. for his five sons. Justin Rockefeller, Wyatt Rockefeller, and David Rockefeller Jr. all sat on the organization’s board of trustees as of its most recent tax filings. Historically, the charity has focused on environmentalism, supporting democracy, and funding the arts.
The foundation’s China operations are not its first foray into assisting organizations that are not aligned with the U.S. In 2022, the Rockefeller Brothers Fund gave $50,000 to Defence For Children International-Palestine, building on a previous six-figure donation, the New York Post reported. The grant came shortly after Israel designated Defence For Children International-Palestine as a terrorist organization due to its alleged ties to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a U.S.-designated terrorist group that has hijacked airplanes and ordered suicide bombings.
Other arms of the Chinese government bankrolled by the Rockefeller Brothers Fund included the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, and the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, with the trio of state-run scientific agencies collectively receiving nearly $1.2 million from the philanthropic organization since 2020 for different environmental research and education programs.
The Chinese Academy of Sciences is overseen by the State Council and run by CCP member Hou Jianguo. In 2020, Jianguo wrote that the academy “will be guided by Xi Jinping’s thoughts on socialism with Chinese characteristics for [a] new era.”
The Beijing Institute of Finance and Sustainability, which is led by the former chief economist of the People’s Bank of China, took in about $1.2 million from the Rockefeller Brothers Fund as well. The China Council for International Cooperation on Environment and Development, an organization founded with the approval of the Chinese government and whose chairman sits on the country’s State Council, meanwhile, received $1.8 million from the American charity.
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The China Energy Research Society, which is under the administration of an arm of the Chinese government, received $200,000 from the foundation for green research, while Tsinghua University, a state-run college that conducts defense research for the Chinese military, got $180,000.
The Rockefeller Brothers Fund did not respond to the Washington Examiner’s request for comment.
