---
title: An institute funded by a Shanghai-based American donor chaired a Beijing webinar that turned Hands Off Asia into U.S. city protest copy against American bases.
url: https://propagandaarchive.org/briefs/20260929-0625Z-correction-hands-off-asia-tricontinental/
description: On 16 September 2026 Newsweek published a dated map of Hands Off Asia, a campaign against U.S. military basing in allied Asia.
section: Watch briefs
---

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[Watch briefs](https://propagandaarchive.org/briefs/) · September 29, 2026

# An institute funded by a Shanghai-based American donor chaired a Beijing webinar that turned Hands Off Asia into U.S. city protest copy against American bases.

- **Filed:** September 29, 2026, 06:25 UTC
- **Actor:** Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research and the International Peoples' Assembly, with public support from a Neville Roy Singham-funded U.S. nonprofit graph; Newsweek and prior New York Times reporting place Singham in Shanghai and in Chinese state-media partnership; Party-state tasking of this slogan is not a signed order in the open file
- **Target:** Audiences in the United States, South Korea, Japan, the Philippines, and the wider Asian diaspora who meet Hands Off Asia without seeing its Beijing-chaired launch webinar or its donor links
- **Source:** Unidentified Source blurred: contractors, cutouts, buried disclosure
- **Confidence:** **high** Multiple independent open sources, low disagreement about the facts
- **Techniques:** [Narrative laundering](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/narrative-laundering/) [Manufactured consensus](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/manufactured-consensus/) [Transfer](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/transfer/) [Card stacking](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/card-stacking/) [Identity fusion](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/identity-fusion/)
- **Where:** United States, China, Sri Lanka, Japan, Philippines, South Korea
- **Channels:** X posts from @tri_continental and @peoplesassembl_30 April 2026 Beijing-chaired webinar HANDS OFF ASIAInternational Peoples' Assembly campaign page ipa-aip.org/campaign/hands-off-asiaTricontinental Asia newsletter and Colombo Declaration, 29 July 2026August 2026 Philadelphia and New York rallies and closed-door meetingsTikTok and Instagram amplification of anti-base clipsNewsweek, 16 September 2026 investigation

## Summary

On 16 September 2026 Newsweek published a dated map of Hands Off Asia, a campaign against U.S. military basing in allied Asia. The slogan appeared on X in early March on the account of Vijay Prashad, director of Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research. Tricontinental and the International Peoples' Assembly launched it on 30 April with a webinar titled HANDS OFF ASIA! Peace, Sovereignty and Anti-U.S. Militarism, chaired in Beijing by Tings Chak, Tricontinental Asia co-coordinator, on the 51st anniversary of the fall of Saigon. In late July the same partners convened Hands Off Asia: A Peoples Call for Sovereignty and Solidarity in Colombo and issued a declaration that closed Hands off Asia. August events in Philadelphia and New York carried the line onto U.S. streets. This brief scores the slogan-to-street pipeline, not the September 15 House hearing on the same donor graph.

## Analysis

The last two briefs in this vault covered a MEK/NCRI Claude impersonation stack and an Israeli-founded drone maker's FARA-registered hire of a MAGA influencer. This cycle rotates to a U.S.-registered institute that chaired a Beijing launch and then walked the same slogan into American cities.

Primary layers agree on the calendar and split on command. Tricontinental's own 29 July 2026 Asia newsletter records a Colombo conference organised by the International Peoples' Assembly with Tricontinental support: more than 80 delegates, more than 40 organisations, 15 countries, closing line Hands off Asia. IPA and Tricontinental posted the 30 April launch on X and Facebook, naming Chak as chair and tying the date to the fall of Saigon. Newsweek, 16 September, adds the March Prashad post, August Philadelphia Asia Rising and New York meetings, and a late-July Philadelphia insurgency session that required masks. The New York Times, 5 August 2023, remains the load-bearing donor map: Singham in Shanghai, U.S. tax-exempt grantees including Tricontinental, and co-production with Chinese state media. Score the slogan, the Beijing chair, the Colombo text and the U.S. events as documented from the organisers and from dated reporting. Score Chinese Communist Party tasking of each Philly banner as contested. SpringAI's claim that TikTok over-served seven campaign messages to bot users is a vendor finding TikTok has called bogus; do not treat that algorithm number as a primary.

Mechanism is transfer plus manufactured consensus plus narrative-laundering. Transfer is the Saigon anniversary and the value terms peace, sovereignty and people's will doing prestige work a Shanghai donor cannot do on a U.S. sidewalk. Manufactured-consensus is many mastheads and city collectives arriving at the same three-word cut after a single webinar and a single declaration. Narrative-laundering is the hop from a webinar chaired in Beijing by a Tricontinental coordinator to a U.S.-registered institute to a Philadelphia or New York protest skin. Card-stacking is the missing denominator: the donor's Shanghai residency and China's own regional military posture do not travel with Hands Off Asia. Identity-fusion is a foreseeable reply if funder scrutiny is raised; no such reply from Tricontinental, the IPA, or the campaign's defenders is documented in this file. Tricontinental signed the work in its own name. That is disclosure on the newsletter. It is not disclosure on a street slogan that never names the chair or the payer.

This is propaganda where origin is a funded institute plus, on the Times's finding, Chinese state-media partnership, institutional form is research, assembly and local protest, and the design goal is to move belief about U.S. bases without the audience meeting the Beijing chair and the donor in the same frame. It is not a finding that every Okinawa or Subic critic is a Singham product, that U.S. basing is beyond argument, that $591 million is a Party appropriation, or that TikTok's ranking is a PLA weapon. A Gulf or Western donor who chaired a Doha webinar and then walked the same slogan into another country's streets as local peace work would be this brief with the nouns swapped.

Literacy counter: if a three-word anti-base chant appears first on a research institute account, is launched from Beijing on a wartime anniversary, and only later shows up as a hometown rally, ask who chaired the webinar and who paid the institute. A city collective is not a source. Apply the same slogan-to-desk test when the chant points at another flag.

## Tells

- A slogan launched on a research-institute account and chaired from Beijing before it appears as a U.S. city rally
- Saigon-anniversary timing used as the warrant for a contemporary anti-base demand
- Several independently branded collectives hitting Hands Off Asia in the same season
- A street chant that never names the webinar chair or the institute funder
- A reply that treating the donor graph as a method question is a smear against peace work

## Literacy counter

If a three-word anti-base chant appears first on a research institute account, is launched from Beijing on a wartime anniversary, and only later shows up as a hometown rally, ask who chaired the webinar and who paid the institute. A city collective is not a source. Apply the same slogan-to-desk test when the chant points at another flag.

## Evidence

1. [Newsweek, 16 September 2026: Hands Off Asia from Prashad X post through Beijing launch to U.S. rallies](https://www.newsweek.com/how-social-posts-made-in-china-sparked-anti-us-protests-in-america-12444410)
2. [Tricontinental Asia newsletter, 29 July 2026: Colombo Declaration text and conference counts](https://thetricontinental.org/asia/hands-off-asia-colombo-declaration/)
3. [International Peoples' Assembly X post, 30 April 2026: launch copy naming Tricontinental and Hands Off Asia](https://x.com/peoplesassembl_/status/2049807129951838328)
4. [Tricontinental X post, 27 April 2026: webinar registration for HANDS OFF ASIA on 30 April](https://x.com/tri_continental/status/2048672155123208331)
5. [New York Times, 5 August 2023: Singham nonprofit web, Shanghai residency, Chinese state-media partnership](https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/05/world/europe/neville-roy-singham-china-propaganda.html)

## Related briefs

- Sep 16, 2026Unidentified — [A Shanghai-funded institute chaired a Beijing webinar that turned Hands Off Asia into U.S. city protest copy against American bases.](https://propagandaarchive.org/briefs/20260916-1010Z-hands-off-asia-tricontinental/) — [Narrative laundering](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/narrative-laundering/) [Manufactured consensus](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/manufactured-consensus/) [Transfer](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/transfer/) [Card stacking](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/card-stacking/) [Identity fusion](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/identity-fusion/)
- Sep 15, 2026Unidentified — [A Shanghai-based donor stack used U.S. tax-exempt newsrooms and activist hubs as local mouths while a House panel staged a Trojan Horses hearing on the same graph.](https://propagandaarchive.org/briefs/20260915-1317Z-singham-trojan-horses-hearing/) — [Narrative laundering](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/narrative-laundering/) [Disclosure theater](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/disclosure-theater/) [Manufactured consensus](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/manufactured-consensus/) [Astroturfing](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/astroturf/) [Card stacking](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/card-stacking/) [Identity fusion](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/identity-fusion/)