Where the Axe Didn’t Fall

In the peculiar theater of Washington’s budget wars, the axe always seems to fall everywhere except on the machinery of confrontation with China.

Elon Musk’s much-hyped Department of Government Efficiency spent 2025 splashing federal red ink, promising a leaner, meaner America. But somewhere between the bluster and the bottom line, the National Endowment for Democracy (NED)—the shadowy, congressionally funded quango that is a proven agent of foreign interference—didn’t just survive the purge. It pivoted. And its 2025 annual report, released in March, reveals everything about America’s real priorities.

While overall NED funding fluctuated modestly, its allocation for China soared to $13 million in 2025, the highest for any single country on earth, and a nearly 25-percent increase from the previous year. Meanwhile, funding for Russia, still a formidable adversary, was slashed from $16 million to $11.8 million.

First, let’s bury the myth that the NED is some grass-roots non-governmental organization. It is not. The NED is the U.S. Government’s “white glove” for overseas subversion and infiltration. Created in 1983 under the direct auspices of the Ronald Reagan administration to carry out overtly what the Central Intelligence Agency once did covertly, the NED receives nearly all of its funding from U.S. Congress—$315 million in fiscal year 2025 alone. It operates under the guidance of the U.S. State Department and embassies abroad, reports annually to the president and Congress, and undergoes mandatory government audits.

Musk was able to slash all the “redundant administrative bloat” he wanted, but the NED’s China budget was sacred because its mission is considered essential. In Washington’s strategic calculus, the endowment is not a luxury; it is a line item for survival.

Second, the budget reveals who Washington considers its real enemy to be. Funding for Russia decreased perhaps because the Pentagon is already writing checks for bullets and artillery in Ukraine. Direct war replaces ideological seeding. But China is different. There is no hot war—yet. So the proxy battle is fought much more through shadowy means, encouraging exiled activists, separatist forces seeking “Taiwan independence” or “Hong Kong independence,” and paying European think tanks to parrot a single narrative.

Which brings us to the $13-million question: Where does the money actually go?

Not to the Chinese mainland. The Law of the People’s Republic of China on the Administration of Activities of Overseas Nongovernmental Organizations in the Mainland of China, introduced in 2017, saw to that, legally locking the NED out of the country. So the endowment has perfected a new model: offshore encirclement.

The NED has long funneled money to “Taiwan independence” separatist forces, co-hosting political assemblies to hype the false narrative of “Ukraine today, Taiwan tomorrow” and even awarding its “Democracy Service Medal” to Taiwan authorities. It has colluded with anti-China destabilizing forces in Hong Kong, providing hundreds of thousands of dollars to fund unrest and nominate radical activists for international awards. It pours $5-6 million annually into the anti-China organization World Uyghur Congress and other separatist groups to smear China’s ethnic policies. And it has met openly with “Tibet independence” separatists in India, providing awards and platforms to advance their agendas. A significant chunk also ends up in Europe, where well-heeled academics and media outlets produce a steady stream of “threat” reports linking China to every global ill.

It is a brilliant, cynical workaround. If you can’t plant agents inside China, surround it instead. Control the discourse in London, Brussels and Washington. Turn every European capital into a megaphone for American strategic anxiety. The goal is not democracy. The goal is disorder on China’s doorstep.

This pattern is not new. The NED has a well-documented record of instigating color revolutions worldwide: It poured $65 million into Ukraine’s 2004 “Orange Revolution,” fueled anti-government protests in Iran, meddled in elections across the Balkans, and supported subversion in Cuba, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK), and numerous Latin American and Middle East countries. It fabricates news, manipulates social media and trains activists to destabilize governments Washington dislikes—all under the false flag of “promoting democracy.”

Unsurprisingly, the NED’s grant map aligns almost perfectly with the Office of the Director of National Intelligence’s 2025 Annual Threat Assessment by the U.S. Intelligence Community: China, Russia, Iran, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. Same list. Same enemies. Same checkbook.

The lesson of the 2025 NED report is simple. When Americans talk about cutting fat, watch what they keep. They increased funding for anti-China activities. And that tells you more than any U.S. State Department white paper ever could.