>let the Chinese Ambassador do it ... And from comment below >CCP would absolutely disallow such work by their own political insiders It's Track 1 vs 1.5 vs

>let the Chinese Ambassador do it ... And from comment below >CCP would absolutely disallow such work by their own political insiders It's Track 1 vs 1.5 vs 2 diplomacy. CCP allows "legal" foreign influence as well. A PRC equivalent-ish of FARA was new NGO laws / local partners. Un-sanctioned foreign influence (i.e. all the CIA assets) got purged. There's going to be need for less official track 1.5/2 work in managing complex relationships especially if tensions between US&PRC is going to heatup in future. The nuance is recalibrating different tiers of policy instruments to determine level of appropriate engagement. Over the last few years, US has been neutering PRC orgs like Confucius institutes, pursued the extremely broad China Initiative and other measures to establish reciprocity in response to CCP crushing unwanted US influence ops in PRC. Work in progress, but track 1.5/2 is not going anywhere.