The arrest of a former adviser to New York governors underscores efforts to root out Chinese agents in the US

Associated Press

NEW YORK (AP) — A secret Chinese police station tucked away in plain sight of New York City. Clandestine efforts by Communist Party agents to spy on and harass Chinese expats. And now allegations that a former aide to two New York governors was secretly acting as an agent of the Chinese government.

The US Justice Department has launched a wave of prosecutions in recent years aimed at tracking down covert agents promoting Beijing’s interests on US soil.

In Brooklyn alone, federal prosecutors have filed at least a dozen such criminal cases against more than 90 people in the past four years, the latest being the arrest on Tuesday of Linda Sun, who once served as deputy chief of staff to Gov. Kathy Hochul and was previously an aide to former Gov. Andrew Cuomo.

The charges against Sun are the most shocking example yet of a threat that U.S. officials have warned about for years: China’s determination to influence American policy and cultivate relationships with politicians who appear to have access to power, even if only at the local level.

While the public may think of foreign agents as those who eavesdrop on military officials or steal state secrets, China has shown itself eager to exert influence in less conspicuous areas, such as currying favor with U.S. officials who have a say in things like local land-use regulations or labor issues.

“There is certainly an effort to develop relationships, friendships and connections in state and local governments,” said Adam Hickey, a former senior Justice Department national security official who led the department’s enforcement of the Foreign Agents Registration Act, which Sun is accused of violating.

Prosecutors say Sun, a mid-level aide in two Democratic administrations, developed a close relationship with officials at the Chinese consulate in New York and did what they asked in ways that were important but unlikely to be appropriate for an espionage story.

Among other things, she is accused of quietly blocking efforts by Taiwanese government officials to meet with top New York state officials, who consider Taiwan part of China. She is also accused of encouraging Cuomo and Hochul to make encouraging comments about China, such as thanking Chinese companies for donating medical equipment during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The indictment alleges that she solicited talking points from a Chinese official for a video Hochul recorded as lieutenant governor in which he wished people a happy Chinese New Year. Prosecutors said Sun took credit for stopping Hochul from mentioning human rights issues in the video. And the indictment alleges that Sun provided unauthorized invitation letters from the governor’s office that helped Chinese officials enter the U.S.

In return, prosecutors say, Sun received tickets to performances by Chinese art groups and several “Nanjing-style salted ducks” shipped to her parents’ home. Even more lucrative, the indictment says, was help for Sun’s husband’s business dealings in China, which generated millions of dollars for the couple, who had a $4 million mansion on Long Island and a condo in Hawaii.

Sun and her husband, Chris Hu, pleaded not guilty on Tuesday.

Sun’s attorney, Jarrod Schaeffer, said she was “understandably upset that these charges have been filed,” but did not elaborate on the allegations.

Hochul on Wednesday called Sun’s alleged actions “an absolute betrayal of the trust of two governments in the state government.”

The alleged efforts to exert foreign influence are part of what FBI and Justice Department officials call a broader effort to manipulate public opinion in China’s favor.

“The Chinese government understands that politicians in smaller roles today can become more influential over time,” FBI Director Christopher Wray said in a January 2022 speech. “So they try to cultivate talent early on to ensure that politicians at all levels of government are ready to answer a call and advocate on behalf of Beijing’s agenda.”

Justice Department officials have charged dozens of Chinese nationals over the past five years, but many of them have remained beyond the reach of U.S. law enforcement.

Among those charged are 40 officers from the Ministry of Public Security who are accused of harassing and threatening dissidents. A group of officers are also alleged to have stalked Chinese citizens living in the U.S. in an attempt to force them to return to China, where they would face prosecution.

A Chinese-American academic known as a pro-democracy activist was convicted in New York earlier this month of collecting information on dissidents and passing it on to his home country’s government.

In 2022, a Chinese government official was charged with plotting to undermine the candidacy of a little-known congressional candidate in New York by planning to find or even fabricate derogatory information that could prevent him from being elected. The accusation was part of a broader conspiracy that resulted in charges against five people, including spying on a Chinese national living in Los Angeles and plotting to destroy his artwork.

Last year, two American citizens were charged with setting up a secret police force in Manhattan, under the direction and control of the Chinese government.

A Chinese embassy spokesman, Liu Pengyu, dismissed the concerns as exaggerated and blamed the US government and media for “regularly exaggerating so-called ‘Chinese agents’ stories, many of which later turned out to be false.”

China has long maintained that U.S. authorities are simply discrediting its international crime-fighting work, such as “Operation Fox Hunt,” a nearly decade-old effort ostensibly aimed at hunting down Chinese fugitives, including corrupt officials.

It is also alleged that police stations reported in North America and Europe are not law enforcement agencies at all, but provide routine services to Chinese citizens, including renewing Chinese driver’s licenses.

Yaqiu Wang, research director for China, Hong Kong and Taiwan at Freedom House, which tracks cross-border repression, applauded efforts to counter Chinese activities that she said undermine human rights and democracy.

Last year, a congressional committee warned that Beijing operates a vast network of organizations that seek to influence American universities, think tanks, civil society groups, other “prominent individuals and institutions” and public opinion generally.

However, Wang cautioned that federal efforts must be targeted and proportionate, given civil rights concerns raised by the Chinese American community and others.

In 2018, the Trump-era Justice Department launched a nationwide initiative known as the China Initiative, targeting Chinese espionage at American universities.

But the initiative was renamed early in the Biden administration after multiple unsuccessful prosecutions of researchers and concerns at some of the nation’s top universities that the program was having a chilling effect on academic research and amounted to racial profiling.

“No American should have to live in fear that their entire life will be turned upside down by wrongful accusations, unjust racial profiling or ugly xenophobia,” U.S. Rep. Judy Chu, a California Democrat, said in July as she stood next to Feng “Franklin” Tao, a Chinese American professor whose espionage case was thrown out by a Colorado judge earlier this year. “There is no room for this kind of prejudice in our federal government or in our country.”

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Associated Press reporters Jennifer Peltz and Anthony Izaguirre in New York contributed to this story. Tucker and Tang reported from Washington.

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Follow Philip Marcelo on twitter.com/philmarcelo.