NEW HILL REPORT TO SAY XI, COMMUNIST PARTY STRONGER THAN EVER: When veteran national security reporter Bill Gertz leads a story like this, pay close attention:

“China’s Communist Party (CCP) under Xi Jinping is expanding control over the Chinese government while increasing the use of covert action influence operations, according to a forthcoming congressional report,” Gertz writes today on Washington Free Beacon.

The forthcoming report, which Gertz obtained under the Federal Advisory Committee Act, is being prepared by the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission.

Among much else, Xi is also cracking down on China’s growing Christian population, forcing church leaders to submit to state supervision and censorship, just as the Soviet Communist Party did in Soviet Union.

“The expanded party controls also have led to an increase in Chinese influence operations conducted through a party organ known as the United Front Work Department,” according to Gertz.

The report will say the “‘As the CCP has consolidated power over many aspects of Chinese society, President Xi has expanded the role of the United Front Work Department (UFWD), a powerful party entity responsible for securing the political support of or otherwise co-opting non-CCP entities within China and among the Chinese diaspora in foreign countries, including the United States,'” Gertz reports.

“Xi elevated the department by declaring its covert and overt operations as important for the party and to be used as a ‘magic weapon’ in advancing Chinese strategic objectives,” Gertz continued. Somehow I doubt Xi had disappearing bunny rabbits in mind.