Shocking accusations that former aides to New York Gov. Kathy Hokul and Andrew Cuomo acted as covert agents for China raised alarm Tuesday about broader efforts by the Chinese Communist Party to compromise public servants and infiltrate American government and society.
Politicians and watchdogs said the indictment in Brooklyn federal court against Linda Sun and her husband, Christopher Fu, showed the scale of China's spy recruitment ring.
“This is a dangerous situation,” warned Ed Cox, the state Republican Party chairman and son-in-law of former President Richard Nixon.
Cox, who visited China with President Nixon in 1979, said he was surprised to learn the indictment alleges Sun and her husband received millions of dollars in exchange for pressuring the Executive Yuan to toe Communist Party lines, including weakening Taiwan.
“This is a wake-up call that there is this kind of Chinese activity going on in New York state,” he told The Post.
“China is not our friend,” Cox added. “This is a national security issue.”
The Chinese Communist Party is not the only foreign government seeking to assert its interests in New York and the United States.
Iran has reportedly funded groups that organize anti-Israel protests, and a federal investigation is underway into whether Turkish interests illegally benefited Mayor Eric Adams' 2021 campaign.
But China conducts the most extensive espionage and influence operations in the United States, said Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-Bronx), a member of the House Select Committee on China.
“No foreign government has penetrated the United States more deeply and pervasively than the Chinese Communist Party, and it may be conducting the most effective and aggressive espionage campaign in human history,” Torres told the Post.
One Queens Democrat, who asked not to be named, said the Chinese Communist Party has a presence in the district and is aware of it.
“The Chinese Communist Party is trying to infiltrate. There are Chinese Communist Party signs in the parade. I'm not going to be photographed holding a Chinese Communist Party sign!” the politician said.
Many Chinese Americans immigrated to the United States to escape Communist oppression, and the political establishment is sensitive to unfairly red-baiting the entire community.
But there is ample evidence that the Chinese Communist Party is deploying spies and trying to infiltrate local politicians and segments of the country's growing Asian population.
Last year, two men were indicted on charges of running a secret police station in Manhattan for the Chinese government. The arrests were part of a sweeping federal crackdown on Beijing's influence operations in the United States.
Lu Jianwang, known as “Harry,” and Chen Jinping are accused of conspiring to act as agents of the Chinese government and obstructing justice over the opening of a secret base in Manhattan's Chinatown in early 2022.
The case is pending.
“Countries are largely unaware that China is doing all this,” said Michael Rich, founder of State Armor, a group that advocates for the protection of state governments from foreign adversaries, particularly the Communist Party.
He described the Sun's indictment as a “black and white” case and “very blatant and brazen”, while the Chinese Communist Party usually operates more subtly in the “grey zone”.
Following Sun's indictment, one Republican lawmaker from upstate New York called for the creation of a bipartisan state commission to investigate Chinese Communist Party activities in New York.
“It is surreal, completely unacceptable and deeply disturbing that the Chinese Communist Party has infiltrated the highest levels of state government,” said state Sen. Jake Ashby, the ranking member of the committee that oversees homeland security.
But Queens Councilman John Liu, who is originally from Taiwan and was the city's first Asian-American elected official when he was comptroller, said people should not jump to judgment and praised Sun, whom he has known for many years.
“I have worked with Linda Sun for many years and know her to be a hard-working, professional and conscientious person, and she is absolutely innocent unless proven otherwise,” Liu said.
“The federal government has a disgraceful track record of indicting meritorious Chinese Americans and then dropping all charges with no regard for the lives and careers that have been needlessly destroyed.”
In 2021, the federal government indicted a New York Police Department officer on charges of spying on Tibetans for the Chinese government, but the charges were later dropped.
The Chinese Communist Party's influence portrayed in the Sun case is “frightening,” said Y-Ting Chu, Republican candidate for State Senate District 11, Queens, and president of the Asian Wave Alliance.
“The Chinese Communist Party certainly has roots in our community. We just don't know who it is,” Chu said.
Sun's case is ostensibly about greed, she said.
“It's about money. People can be bought. China tried to buy her off,” said Chu, a Taiwanese native who moved to the island as a child.
She said the incident risked unfairly tarnishing the image of Chinese Americans and was “disheartening.”
“It stigmatizes people who look like you. The Chinese community is a conservative, law-abiding community,” Chu said.
