“China-Iran Influence Networks in the United States” with Joel Finkelstein
China-Iran Influence Networks in the United States
Chinese and Iranian influence networks are joining forces inside the United States. The Dissent Factory, a new report from the Network Contagion Research Institute (NCRI), traces how the House of Latin America, a Tehran-based group tied to Iranian state institutions, partnered with Tricontinental, a U.S. tax-exempt nonprofit financed by Neville Roy Singham, whose work with China’s state propaganda apparatus the report documents, and how the network reaches American protest movements, down to soliciting donations through a sanctioned Iranian bank. Joel Finkelstein, NCRI’s cofounder and chief science officer, will brief on how Beijing and Tehran dress up state-aligned activity as grassroots dissent, who is involved, and what Washington should do about it, followed by audience questions.
Joel Finkelstein is cofounder and chief science officer of the Network Contagion Research Institute (NCRI), the Princeton-based nonprofit he launched in 2018 to track and forecast hate, extremism, and foreign influence operations online. NCRI’s reports, including its studies of Chinese Communist Party influence on TikTok and the 2026 report The Dissent Factory, have shaped U.S. policy debates. He is a fellow at the Miller Institute for Secure Communities at Rutgers University and holds a PhD in psychology from Princeton University.
