As Covid-19 was spreading across New York in March 2020, state officials held a private conference call to discuss their response to the pandemic. But there was someone else listening in who had no business being on the call: a Chinese government official.
The official, according to federal prosecutors, had been surreptitiously added to the call by Linda Sun, who was then an officer in the administration of Gov. Andrew Cuomo.
“Keep your phone muted,” Sun admonished the Chinese official in a written message during the call, according to prosecutors.
At the close of the 32-minute discussion, prosecutors say, the official sent Sun a two-word review: “[v]ery useful.”
The call was one of the episodes highlighted in a 64-page indictment accusing Sun of using her positions in New York state government to benefit the Chinese government. In return for shaping government messages to align with Chinese priorities and freezing out Taiwanese officials, she and her family received a range of benefits including millions in kickbacks, free travel and more than a dozen Nanjing-style salted ducks.
Sun, 41, who worked under Cuomo and his successor, Gov. Kathy Hochul, has pleaded not guilty.
U.S. counterintelligence officials have long harbored concerns, publicly and privately, about China’s elaborate efforts to try to spy and exert influence across American society, including bribing members of the military and the tech industry.
Part of Beijing’s long-term strategy has also involved targeting local and state officials with the hope of securing more support for China and gaining insights into political decision making as those officials rise to higher office, officials say.
The case involving Sun is typical of China’s tactics, according to Dennis Wilder, a former senior CIA official who focused on China at the…
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