EXCLUSIVE: China Used Military-Linked Kindergarten To Cultivate Ties With Mitch McConnell’s Wife And In-Laws — Daily Caller News Foundation

EXCLUSIVE: China Used Military-Linked Kindergarten To Cultivate Ties With Mitch McConnell’s Wife And In-Laws

A child soldier lies dead in a marsh from starvation.

Philip Lenczycki · Oct 12, 2026 · 8 min read

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EXCLUSIVE: China Used Military-Linked Kindergarten To Cultivate Ties With Mitch McConnell’s Wife And In-Laws

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A child soldier lies dead in a marsh from starvation.

The Red Army pauses to mourn the little martyr for a moment before the Long March moves on — and the kindergarten play ends.

It is graduation day in Shanghai and Elaine Chao is in attendance.

The date is June 14, 2026 and in several hours Chao’s husband, Kentucky Republican Sen. Mitch McConnell, will be rushed to a hospital on the other side of the globe.

Chao has been returning to this Shanghai kindergarten for decades, where she has repeatedly met with officials from the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and an influence and intelligence arm called the United Front Work Department (UFWD), according to Daily Caller News Foundation translations of dozens of Chinese government and state-media reports.

Beijing uses the UFWD to steer foreign policy and “gain access to advanced foreign technology,” according to the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission.

Named in honor of Chao’s grandfather, the kindergarten is being used by a United Front arm as a stage to cultivate ties with Chao, documents show.

Chao — whose Chinese name is Zhao Xiaolan — has received at least four Chinese government positions since 2008, including a Wuhan municipal advisory post as well as roles within the China Overseas Friendship Association (COFA) and the All-China Federation Of Returned Overseas Chinese (ACFROC) — both of which are UFWD arms, the DCNF recently reported. Chao’s three UFWD arm positions partially overlapped with her tenure as President George W. Bush’s Department of Labor secretary and/or her service as Department of Transportation secretary during President Donald Trump’s first term.

Chao’s spokesperson, Patrick O’Connor, denied she “held a position with a foreign government” and told the DCNF “[w]e are not aware she has met with representatives of UFWD entities” after being sent photos showing Chao meeting with CCP and UFWD officials.

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“Such a suggestion disregards her nearly five decades of faithful service to the United States and is both unfounded and deeply insulting, hurtful and racist,” O’Connor added.

“Education has always been a primary focus for the family and its philanthropy. The secretary regularly visits schools in the U.S. and abroad,” O’Connor said in response to questions about why Chao had participated in events at the Shanghai kindergarten that variously featured Chinese military propaganda, CCP and UFWD officials. “This kindergarten is named after Dr. Chao’s father, and he has supported it for nearly four decades. The secretary was there to honor her father’s connection to the school, which is recognized as one of the best kindergartens in the region.”

Chao’s relationship with CCP and UFWD-affiliated organizations underscores how China intends to use political influence operations and information warfare to defeat the U.S. “without ever firing a shot,” Brandon Weichert, a geopolitical analyst and author of The Weichert Brief, told the DCNF.

“After more than 40 years of such operations, which have even influenced educational institutions in the U.S., it is clear that the United States has been completely outmaneuvered and overrun by the Chinese narrative,” Weichert said. “That even people like the wife of former Republican Party Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, a former cabinet member herself, has become the face of a quiet campaign to influence the hearts and minds shows you how prolific — and profligate — the Chinese campaign has been.”

“We are on the slow, but steady path of being absorbed in China’s new empire without so much as any understanding that this is underway,” Weichert warned.

‘Little Soldiers’

The Chao family’s relationship with the Shanghai school dates back to its inception, when Chao’s father — James S.C. Chao, founder of shipping firm Foremost Group — donated $100,000 to the Malu Central Kindergarten in 1995. The school was subsequently renamed the Malu Yiren Kindergarten in honor of his father, Zhao Yiren — a Jiading primary school principal who believed in “saving the nation through education.”

EXCLUSIVE: China Used Military-Linked Kindergarten To Cultivate Ties With Mitch McConnell’s Wife And In-Laws

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‘Little Soldiers’

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