The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace last week erased the profiles of at least 16 Chinese policy experts from its website after The Daily Caller revealed that the nonprofit had employed members of Chinese Communist Party intelligence front groups.

The Washington, D.C., think tank employed most of the individuals while current CIA Director William Burns served as president of the organization, according to the news outlet.

Daily Caller News Foundation (DCNF) cross-referenced the book written by Alex Joske, "Spies and Lies," which details Chinese intelligence agents' efforts to infiltrate and influence Western institutions, to identify staff who have worked for Chinese spy fronts, including the Ministry of State Security (MSS) and the intel army of the People's Liberation Army.

Joske said China's MSS aimed to lure influential Western institutions with close government ties into partnerships with various Chinese nonprofits.

"[The MSS] went after people's best intentions towards China," Joske told the DCNF. "There were plenty of people who believed in this vision of a more democratic and more open China and thought it was something that could be realized, even under the Chinese Communist Party."

One of those employees is Zhou Gi, a U.S.-China relations expert and CCP member who has worked for the China Institute of International Studies and Chinese think tank China Reform Forum.

Zhou's profile has been scrubbed from the Carnegie website. Wu Riqiang, an expert on nuclear policy, Wang Suolao, an international relations expert, and Xie Tao, an expert on U.S.-China relations, are also nowhere to be found on the website.

The Daily Caller linked all three to front groups for the United Front Work Department, a Communist Party body charged with spreading its influence and propaganda overseas.

Neither Carnegie's Washington, D.C., headquarters nor its China office have responded to DCNF's request for comments.

"Carnegie is attempting to cover up their ties to Communist China, but the infiltration is so severe that they are unwilling — or potentially even unable — to purge every last CCP member and intelligence front group operative from their ranks," Republican Texas Rep. Lance Gooden told the DCNF.

"It's past time for Congress to investigate this corrupt organization."

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