A senior aide to Special Presidential Envoy for Climate John Kerry spoke at an overseas meeting on addressing climate change alongside organizations closely linked to the Chinese Communist Party.

Reed Schuler, managing implementation director under Kerry at the State Department-housed office, took part in the little-known Dec. 8, 2023, meeting at the United Nations-run climate conference in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, according to the Energy Foundation, a CCP-tied nonprofit group with offices in the United States and Beijing that hosted the event. A top employee for the Chinese People’s Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries, a Beijing-based entity that U.S. intelligence has flagged as being a CCP front group, was also in attendance late last year, National Review reported.

“The front organizations like this are very useful to the Chinese government in conducting engagement or co-optation or exploitation, often of genuine NGOs in other countries or governments in other countries,” John Dotson, a China analyst and deputy director of the Global Taiwan Institute, told the outlet. “It’s useful for them as a sort of broader, more ongoing effort to continue the puppet show.”