The US has little grasp of how deep China's network of espionage and influence operations runs through the nation, a dire warning from Congress has revealed.

The Chinese Communist Party's (CCP) presence on American soil has already revealed itself in the network of secret police stations in major cities and the 'Little Red Classrooms' in kindergartens.

Now, members of the bipartisan House China Select Committee have released a memo detailing how the U.S. has failed to combat Beijing's infiltration - and it could get worse.

The threat comes from the united front, a political strategy Xi Jinping has called his 'magic weapon'.

It's the plan the CCP uses to influence beyond its circle without the information appearing to come directly from the Chinese government.

China spends billions on the united front system each year. United front is affiliated with some 600 groups in the U.S., according to a 2020 Newsweek report, that are all in regular touch with the CCP.

'United front work damages U.S. interests through legal and illegal technology transfer, surveillance of Chinese diaspora communities, promotion of favorable narratives about the PRC through ostensibly independent voices, and the neutralization or harassment of critics of the CCP,' the new report found. 

'The United States has no direct analogue, and the U.S. Government has struggled to counter united front work with traditional counterintelligence, law enforcement, and diplomatic tools,' it warned.