CCP recruits young, apparently Anxiety over AI and data centers is widely held, but somehow the Trump administration has convinced itself the public concern was manufactured in China. This week, in little-noticed remarks by President Trump and Justice Department warning, the administration declared war on protestors and opponents of AI, threatening “criminal liability” if they “further the propaganda or other goals of a foreign power.”

While that sounds like some modern day Tokyo Rose shilling for Beijing, the actual targets are normal people. Last week, the Justice Department instructed “citizens and noncitizens” that anyone furthering a foreign power’s “goals” in “any public activity,” including “public demonstrations,” must formally notify the government to avoid arrest and prosecution. Two days prior, President Trump began social posts declaring opposition to AI a traitorous, treasonous conspiracy tracing back to China.

“There is a SICK conspiracy going on against AI and Data Centers, and the only one that is happy about it is China,” Trump posted on September 14. “Conspiracy Theorists, Treasonists, Traitors, and Leakers, BEWARE!”

In June, Senate Intelligence Committee chairman Tom Cotton (R-AR) asked then-acting Attorney General Todd Blanche to investigate “foreign influence efforts targeting the buildout of American AI infrastructure.” Cotton’s chief exhibit was Neville Roy Singham, a Shanghai-based American tech mogul whose network of left-wing U.S. nonprofits, Cotton claimed, has spent years producing content opposing American AI infrastructure, with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) as its “ultimate paymaster.”