The United States House of Representatives’ Appropriations Committee approved the Fiscal Year 2027 National Security, Department of State, and Related Programs Appropriations Act on Tuesday, which, under the heading Democracy Fund, authorizes the allocation of no less than $5 million “for democracy and internet freedom programs for Hong Kong, including legal and other support for democracy activists”.

Given that US public finance is strained by over $39 trillion in debt, earmarking $5 million of American taxpayers money for promoting “democracy and freedom” in Hong Kong, a city thousands of miles away from America, has raised some eyebrows.

As is known around the world, US funds allocated for “promoting democracy and freedom” overseas are mostly channeled through the National Endowment for Democracy (NED). Ostensibly a nongovernmental organization, the NED acts as the US government’s “white gloves” in carrying out subversion, infiltration and sabotage across the world, according to a report released by the Chinese Foreign Ministry in August 2024.

In a 1991 interview with The Washington Post, the NED’s cofounder Allen Weinstein put it bluntly that “Many of the things we do today are things the CIA did 25 years ago.” It is therefore known globally as the “second CIA”. In fact, approximately 84 percent of the NED’s funding comes directly from US Congress appropriation, and its operations require coordination with the US State Department and US embassies abroad, or to put it more precisely: the NED takes its orders from the US government.

The projected $5 million in new funds from the US Congress “for democracy and internet freedom programs for Hong Kong”, which is a euphemism for brazen interference in the city’s affairs, reminds its residents that national security threats remain, and that national security education in the SAR is by no means redundant, at least not in the foreseeable future

The NED has manipulated NGOs around the world by providing them with funds to export American values, conduct subversion, infiltration and sabotage, and incite subversive “democratic movements” in target countries and regions.

For the US, the NED is far from redundant. It is an essential tool for pursuing its hegemony. Its funding map, for instance, highly overlaps with the Washington’s “threat list”. In 2025, the NED’s annual budget reached approximately $315 million, funding over 1,900 projects in more than 90 countries worldwide. Projects targeting China amounted to $13.1 million, a significant increase of nearly a quarter from previous years. Hong Kong has been seen by some Washington politicians as a useful platform for advancing their geopolitical strategy against Beijing.

From the perspective of US politicians, the NED provides a “low-cost, high-return” model for subversive operation overseas. In its 2026 budget application submitted to Congress, the NED boasted: “We deliver extraordinary impact at low cost. For less than the cost of a single F-35 fighter jet, NED supports over 1,900 projects in more than 90 countries — helping democracies take root, survive, and ultimately thrive.”

Of course, the world knows it well that those NED projects include funding secretive operations to incite division, stoke unrest, and instigate subversion in targeted countries and regions. Hong Kong has fallen victim to its highly cost-effective clandestine operation.

Over the past two decades, the NED has reaped huge returns from its “investment” in the anti-China subversive forces in Hong Kong in terms of wreaking havoc on the special administrative region’s constitutional order. The NED and its affiliates bankrolled the illegal “Occupy Central” movement in 2014 and the “black-clad riots” in 2019-20. As revealed by Hong Kong media, the now-defunct Hong Kong Confederation of Trade Unions alone allegedly received approximately HK$13 million ($1.65 million) from the Washington-based Solidarity Center, one of NED’s four core institutes, from 1994 to 2014, some of which was specifically earmarked for supporting the “Occupy Central” movement. During the 2019 “black-clad riots”, the amount of illicit funds received by local subversive organizations reached multiyear highs. Notably, Jimmy Lai Chee-ying, the founder of Apple Daily, also commanded a financial chain inextricably linked to NED funding. These irrefutable facts have nailed the NED to the pillar of historical disgrace.

Based on substantial evidence, on Dec 2, 2019, the Chinese Foreign Ministry announced sanctions against the NED among other groups for the inglorious roles they played in the “black-clad riots”.

The projected $5 million in new funds from the US Congress “for democracy and internet freedom programs for Hong Kong”, which is a euphemism for brazen interference in the city’s affairs, reminds its residents that national security threats remain, and that national security education in the SAR is by no means redundant, at least not in the foreseeable future.

The author is a member of the Tuen Mun District Council.

The views do not necessarily reflect those of China Daily.