DOD-Contracted Firm Has Direct Access to Servicemembers and Their Kids, Small Detail Reveals Who Pentagon Is Really Paying: Report
Who better to be tutoring the children of active servicemembers than a company with direct ties to the Chinese Communist Party?
The Chinese-owned Primavera Capital Group has a contract with the Department of Defense to provide Tutor.com, one of the companies owned by the group, to servicemembers and their families, the Daily Caller reported Friday.
The CEO, Fred Hu, has ties directly to the CCP as well as belonging to organizations that the U.S. government has identified as parts of CCP’s “United Front,” according to the report.
This “United Front,” or United Front Work Department, has been identified by the U.S. government’s U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission as a group intended to influence foreign actors and collect intelligence.
The UFWD has been described by the review commission as a Chinese intelligence service, drawing major concerns about its operation of a service for U.S. military families.
In a statement, a Primavera representative denied Hu has any times to the Chinese Communist Party “or any other political party,” but the Daily Caller’s indicated that reviews of Hu’s media appearances suggests otherwise.
Tutor.com has been providing free tutoring services to military families since 2009, according to the website Military Times reported last year. Primavera purchased Tutor.com in 2022 from the Korean company ST Unitas, The Wall Street Journal reported in May.
This questionable business connection has not gone unnoticed, the Daily Caller reported, as Arkansas Republican Sen. Tom Cotton sent a letter to Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin Feb. 14 where the senator discussed numerous issues with the business relationship.
“I write regarding the Chinese-owned Primavera Capital Group’s contract with your Department to tutor American service members and their children,” Cotton wrote in the opening paragraph.
“This business relationship is ill-advised, reckless, and a danger to U.S. national security, and the Department should immediately end that relationship.”
Cotton noted the connections that Primavera has to TikTok’s parent company ByteDance, which invested $3 billion in Primavera back in 2018 according to the Daily Caller.
The senator cited notable issues with Tutor.com, claiming it collects personal data on users, such as “location, internet protocol addresses, and contents of the tutoring sessions,” which is then sent to the Chinese government.
He concluded by asking questions about the company and the Department of Defense’s relationship such as “How much funding” has been given to Tutor.com, “How many military personnel or dependents use Tutor.com annually?” and “Are users informed their data will be shared with a Chinese company?”
Cotton hit the nail on the head when he calls out the relationship with Primavera.
Any relationship with China or any Chinese entity needs to be closely scrutinized and monitored as the communist country has shown its more than willing to play dirty.
The appropriate level of scrutiny and monitoring doesn’t appear to be shown in this current relationship with Primavera.
Even more than for civilian citizens, the information about military members and their families is extremely dangerous for a foreign nation to acquire.
It’s time for the United States and its leaders to show they are aware of just how far China is willing to go to cause harm to this country.
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