Rep. Grace Meng (D-NY) once declared a “President An Quanzhong Day” in her congressional district to honor the China-born businessman’s work for his Chinese hometown association in New York—while her campaign took thousands of dollars in donations from An.
Today An and his daughter—a green card holder and a U.S. citizen, respectively, at the time of their arrest—are among seven people facing charges of acting as foreign agents for allegedly colluding with Chinese officials to try to force a U.S. resident back to China against his will.
Another prolific donor to New York politicians was U.S. citizen Lu Jianwang, one of two men arrested for allegedly hosting a clandestine Chinese police station in Manhattan. Meng, New York City Mayor Eric Adams, and New York Gov. Kathy Hochul all got thousands of dollars in donations from Lu and his brother.
A months-long Newsweek investigation has uncovered donations to leading New York politicians by dozens of U.S.-based community groups and their leaders with close ties to the United Front Work Department or to a wider “united front system” operated globally by the Chinese Communist Party. The department reports directly to the Central Committee of the CCP. The donations stretch back decades; recipients have included former New York senator and presidential candidate Hillary Clinton—and Meng’s campaigns received over $270,000 from such groups and their leaders since 2006, Newsweek‘s review shows.
The groups offer community services and business opportunities for members. But critics say the CCP uses the sprawling system to interfere in host countries by building ties with and influencing local politicians, acting as a network to carry out “transnational repression” of the party’s opponents globally, and a conduit for espionage by China’s security services.
None of the associations mentioned in this report returned Newsweek‘s requests for comment.
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