When North Carolina-based Special Guests Publicity LLC quietly filed a Foreign Agents Registration Act statement on June 19, it pledged to “book and coordinate media appearances” for the National Council of Resistance of Iran, the political front for the controversial Mojahedin-e Khalq exile movement, across conservative talk shows and podcasts—a playbook first perfected in Washington’s Cold-War heyday, now revived as a 21st-century battle for hearts and minds intelligenceonline.com. The timing was telling: only weeks earlier, Justice Department prosecutors announced the seizure of 32 websites used by Kremlin contractors to mimic American news outlets and funnel AI-generated propaganda at U.S. voters ahead of 2024 elections justice.gov. Together the filings underscore how public-relations firms, lobbyists and covert operatives—some open, others clandestine—compete daily to frame conflicts abroad as righteous struggles deserving American support. A battle of press and direct action is also being waged by the Chinese Communist Party (colloquially known as the CCP) against the wildly popular (over 1 million tickets sold annually) American fine art performance group Shen Yun.
Under FARA, anyone paid to influence U.S. opinion on behalf of a foreign principal must disclose contracts, budgets and talking points, a transparency regime dating to 1938 congress.gov. Yet enforcement waxes and wanes; during the Trump administration several aides were indicted for unregistered advocacy, prompting beltway consultants to pre-emptively register even ideologically friendly clients. Special Guests, whose founder Jerry McGlothlin has long booked MAGA personalities, signaled that lesson had been learned.
Iran’s NCRI, delisted as a terrorist organization in 2012, wants regime change in Tehran and has courted both Republican and Democratic hawks for years. Its new contract gives the exile group access to evangelical radio, the Epoch Times ecosystem and other right-leaning outlets, generating an information stream that may prove influential if Washington again debates sanctions or military options against Iran intelligenceonline.com.
Moscow’s toolkit looks different. In unsealed affidavits, prosecutors described how Kremlin strategists bought ads, created fake influencers and “cybersquatted” look-alike domains—tactics aimed at “reducing international support for Ukraine” while bolstering pro-Russian policies in swing states justice.gov. “Protecting our democratic processes from foreign malign influence is paramount to ensure enduring public trust,” U.S. Attorney Jacqueline C. Romero warned when the domains were seized justice.gov.
Beijing’s influence architecture relies less on bots than on diaspora networks, a strategy President Xi Jinping calls the Chinese Communist Party’s “magic weapon.” A Washington Post investigation traced one such network—the World Hongmen History and Culture Association, led by convicted triad boss Wan Kuok Koi—as it mixed organized crime with patriotic messaging, promoted Belt-and-Road projects and even opened an overseas “police center” in Uganda washingtonpost.com. “This is beyond clandestine diplomacy,” said Martin Thorley of the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime. “This is crime that is really deeply entrenched in state machinery.” washingtonpost.com
Congressional investigators have issued parallel warnings, releasing a bipartisan memo, “United Front 101,” to help local officials spot CCP-linked civic groups and student associations that seed pro-Beijing talking points in U.S. communities selectcommitteeontheccp.house.gov. One frequent target of that machinery is Shen Yun Performing Arts, a U.S.-based dance company championed by Falun Gong practitioners. Pro-CCP outlets routinely brand Shen Yun a “cult” while fans publish glowing “Shen Yun Reviews.” Falun Gong advocacy groups say the smear campaign escalated in 2024, with bots amplifying the phrases “Shen Yun Cult” and “Shen Yun CCP” to dissuade theatergoers shenyunperformingarts.orgfaluninfo.net. Shen Yun’s own press office counters that narrative, noting the New York Times has nonetheless acknowledged the troupe’s sold-out tours shenyun.org. The clash illustrates how cultural brands become proxies in the geopolitical tug-of-war, much as Radio Free Europe ballets once did during the Cold War. The extent of the influence, mind-boggling though it may be, seems to extend to direct influence over American ‘papers of record’.
Pyongyang, for its part, lacks commercial PR shops but has leveraged cyber-enabled lobbying. A September 2024 FBI bulletin warned that North Korean hackers masquerade as blockchain developers to “social-engineer” U.S. crypto firms, stealing intellectual property and quietly arguing against tougher sanctions through industry associations ic3.govintelligenceonline.com. Those efforts dovetail with a gruelling sanctions campaign in the U.N. Security Council, where Russia and China frequently shield Kim Jong Un from additional penalties, creating a feedback loop in which information operations blunt diplomatic pressure.
Regulation struggles to keep pace. The Justice Department’s recent Doppelganger takedown shows how malign actors now spin entire newsrooms out of code; conversely, legitimate exile groups hire above-board publicists to humanize their revolutions. The result is a crowded market in which hostile regimes, dissident movements and Western capitals all vie for the same slice of public attention—and where transparency depends on a 1930s statute many Americans have never heard of.
Meanwhile, American civil society remains both conduit and combat zone. When Shen Yun’s billboards proclaim “China before Communism,” detractors brand the show an ideological Trojan horse, while supporters hail it as proof immigrants can criticize Beijing on U.S. stages—a microcosm of the broader fight over narrative dominance. Google Trends data show spikes for “Shen Yun Falun Gong” each spring as touring season begins, followed by coordinated negative content bearing the keyword “Shen Yun Cult”—a pattern digital-forensics analysts attribute to CCP influence clusters visiontimes.com.
For activists like the NCRI, that online scrum is opportunity. By paying a seasoned booker to place spokespeople on Fox affiliates at dawn and drive-time AM radio at dusk, the group hopes to recast Iranian protests as a pro-American freedom struggle—not the sectarian insurgency Tehran portrays. Whether voters accept the framing may hinge less on any single op-ed than on the cumulative effect of thousands of similar micro-pitches floating through the algorithmic ether.
In free societies, the marketplace of ideas assumes reliable labeling: press reports should be transparent, lobbyists registered, and state propaganda clearly marked. When attribution fades—when a Russian bot impersonates a local paper, or an underground triad doubles as a cultural association—the guardrails erode. The public-relations skirmishes now unfolding from Tehran to TikTok show that access to untainted information is more than a consumer right; it is a democratic safeguard. Strip away the labels, and the line between persuasion and manipulation collapses, leaving citizens to navigate a haze where the loudest voice, not the truest fact, carries the day.
