How Beijing recruited New York Chinatowns for influence campaign

A common denominator in both the China trip and in Meng’s political rise is a New York association of Chinese-Americans like her.

The two travelers to China were leaders of the Henan Association of Eastern America, which has been a fixture of Meng’s life for decades, including the over 15 years the Democrat has represented one of New York’s Chinatowns. The association is central to bombshell federal allegations that Beijing had a mole in the New York governor’s office, and the congresswoman is now distancing herself from a group that for years described her as its vice chair.

Called “hometown" associations because their members often hail from the same place in China, groups like the Henan association are best known across the U.S. for promoting Lunar New Year parades and dragon dances. Over the past decade, Beijing has turned some of them into partners to help influence U.S. political discourse.

The same month Meng was elected to Congress in 2012, Xi Jinping took power in Beijing and breathed new life into a Communist Party instrument known as the United Front Work Department. Xi has called it “an important magic weapon for uniting all Chinese people at home and abroad to achieve the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation."

The strategy positioned organizations like the one Meng’s associates visited in Henan province to engage the Chinese-American community, including hometown group leaders.

Outwardly, the United Front’s mandate is to promote Chinese propaganda and culture internationally.

But under Xi, United Front has cultivated hometown associations to help surveil and harass Chinese activists in the U.S. “The Chinese Communist Party is carrying out a global campaign to silence its critics," according to the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission, which advises Congress and has documented how Beijing’s “transnational repression tool kit" also includes suppressing campus free speech and controlling communication across the ubiquitous messaging app WeChat.

Hometown associations, fraternal clans and other kinship organizations have connected ethnic Chinese in the U.S. since the 1850s, initially to combat discrimination like an American law that for 61 years blocked most Chinese immigration into the country, according to research by Renqiu Yu, a historian at State University of New York’s Purchase College.

Today, Chinese hometown organizations across the U.S. are almost as ubiquitous as Chinese takeout restaurants; the Journal examined records of more than 100 Chinese associations in New York City alone, including some that oppose Beijing and many others that appear apolitical. Known as tong xiang hui in Chinese, many simply offer rooms for elderly folks to chat in their native dialects while shuffling mahjong tiles.

Beijing’s fingerprints on some organizations have attracted attention from the Justice Department. In the New York area alone, at least 10 indictments have implicated organization leaders in the past two years. In one case, two Fujian association principals were charged with acting as Beijing agents in setting up a covert Chinese police station on the premises of a Manhattan Chinatown association.

When Xi visited San Francisco last November, Chinese associations from around the U.S. descended on the city. A senior representative of groups affiliated with Fujian province ripped down an anti-Xi banner and the head of a Henan province association from Seattle punched a dissident wearing a sticker that said “Free China," according to rights groups. In all, the Hong Kong Democracy Council and Students for a Free Tibet documented 34 instances of harassment, intimidation and assault during the visit, including the use of Chinese flags as weapons.

In New York, the former head of a business association for people from Shandong province recently pleaded guilty to federal charges of acting as a foreign agent after being charged with pressuring a U.S. resident to surrender to Shandong prosecutors. The Justice Department alleged the tactics, part of a Chinese government campaign to repatriate Chinese expats sought in investigations, included threatening the target’s family with “endless misery" if he resisted.

Separately, one-time congressional candidate Yan Xiong told The Wall Street Journal that hometown groups torpedoed his election hopes over his 1989 participation in the Tiananmen Square pro-democracy movement. Repeatedly, as he sought to speak to gatherings hosted by hometown associations, Xiong says he was refused a platform.

“The consulate gives its powers to them, and their leaders influence the people," Xiong says.

After he launched his campaign for a New York City seat, he said Federal Bureau of Investigation agents approached him to warn that he might be at risk of physical attacks. In early 2022, the Justice Department indicted an alleged state-security officer in China for orchestrating a “scheme to undermine the candidacy."

A more recent case cut close to Meng and implicated the Henan group. The federal indictment unsealed in September charged Linda Sun, a former aide to New York Gov. Kathy Hochul and her predecessor, Andrew Cuomo, with acting as China’s agent. It said Sun coordinated official business with Chinese authorities, using the Henan association as her intermediary.

Sun has denied the charges against her, and her attorney said the allegations remain unproven.

Family ties

Meng, 49 years old, and Sun, 40, have a long history. They were mentored by the same Chinatown immigration-rights leader and Sun worked for Meng before Cuomo tapped her as an Asian community liaison. Both women have been prominent attendees of Henan association banquets.

Sun’s indictment didn’t name Meng or suggest wrongdoing on her part. But it alleged that the two Henan association leaders who carried Meng’s letter to China were at the same time working with Sun and Henan party officials to get then-Lt. Gov. Hochul to visit the province. Such a visit would carry important propaganda value in China, the indictment says.

Because they have get-out-the-vote power in their communities, New York groups like the 10,000-member Henan association have long attracted interest from American politicians. The same elected officials who join Irish and Caribbean parades attend Chinese galas, but with a difference: Some of the most prominent groups, like the Henan association, promote a worldview crafted by America’s chief rival.

“What we’re seeing a lot, but especially in New York City, is there are lots of Chinese associations that have been infiltrated by the Chinese government," said a U.S. law-enforcement official.

Speaking at Henan association events, Meng has praised its local charity and immigration services. The association also honors Chinese diplomats and plays China’s national anthem at banquets, plus has pushed Beijing’s agenda onto American streets, such as by organizing a demonstration against visiting Taiwanese officials.

For more than a decade, the Henan association displayed side-by-side photos of Meng and the group’s president on its internet home page and described her as a top officer. Meng’s grandmother was a co-founder of the group in the 1970s, and both her parents have had prominent roles at the association.

In an interview, Meng said that while she has known association leaders since childhood, owing to family ties and Henan heritage on her mother’s side, her professional relationship to the group is politician-to-constituent.

Meng denied she has held a title with the association and said any assertion to the contrary may have reflected overzealousness by its officers. “Sometimes these groups get overexcited and may use names of elected officials or VIPs to make them look more credible or important," she said.

Yet, in a 2008 video the association produced, Meng described herself as its vice chairman. “I have no recollection of making this video 16 years ago before I was in elected office," she said in a subsequent statement. “My understanding is that this was an honorary title. I didn’t perform any duties as an officer such as serving on a board or making decisions. Any assertion that my attending community organization events is somehow nefarious is absurd, false and xenophobic," she said.

“Like every American patriot, I am deeply, deeply concerned about the national security threat that the Chinese Communist Party’s government poses to the United States, and I believe we need to protect our nation from it," Meng said. She expressed disappointment at Sun’s activities as described in the indictment against her and said any wrongdoing by the Henan group’s leaders should be called out.

The congresswoman also cautioned against painting members of hometown associations with a broad brush. “Just like there are groups in other communities, [Chinese immigrants] tend to find people that maybe are from their hometowns, share similar foods and customs and traditions," she said.

Flushing base

Allegations in the recent federal indictment of New York City Mayor Eric Adams—a frequent honoree at Chinese association galas—illuminated how, in addition to turning out voters, groups like hometown associations can wield financial power in American elections. He is accused of taking illegal foreign campaign contributions that were bundled through large ethnic gatherings. While the Adams charges are grounded in the Turkish community, the law-enforcement official said Chinese groups are suspected of hatching similar schemes.

The official said the Chinese money flows are a focus of investigative efforts, calling the alleged activity “overwhelming in scope."

Several directors of the Henan association in New York declined to respond to questions, including the two men on the 2019 China trip: Zhang Fuyin, or Frank Zhang, the association’s former president who is described as an unindicted co-conspirator in the charges against Sun, and an association leader and the longtime aide to the congresswoman, Li Xiqing, or Sydney Li, who also wasn’t charged.

China’s embassy in Washington said Beijing abides by a principle of noninterference in the affairs of other nations. It said United Front “aims to promote cooperation with people outside the party" but some people use Beijing’s efforts to unite “the vast number of overseas Chinese and overseas students" as an excuse to smear China’s political system and normal exchanges.

Lumber trade

In Congress, Meng represents a New York City district anchored by Flushing, a major Chinatown in Queens. Meng got her political start in the New York State Assembly four years after her father became the first Asian to serve in the legislature; like successive leaders of the Henan association, he was in the lumber trade.

Meng has won six congressional races by large margins, and each time the Henan association rallied community support, much like a political machine. A local saying: “Flushing’s last name is Meng."

The congressional legislation Meng has sponsored mentioning China has mostly tackled issues like strengthening immigrant rights, combating Asian-hate incidents and celebrating Lunar New Year.

The congresswoman said her record is similar to that of colleagues in the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus and offered a list of 44 bills and resolutions countering China that she has supported.

Unlike espionage operations to steal American secrets and undermine the nation’s security, the United Front promotes favorable views of China. Its constellation of quasi-diplomatic organizations typically have “overseas," “friendship," “patriotic" or “unification" in their names, like the group Meng issued her congratulatory letter to in 2019, the Henan Provincial Federation of Returned Overseas Chinese. In the Sun indictment, the Justice Department refers to New York’s Henan group as “closely associated" with United Front.

Meng said it is beyond the capabilities of a congressional office to know the intentions of every interlocutor. The congresswoman said she is now being more careful to scrutinize and limit her proclamations.

Photo op

Henan, a central province celebrated for its ancient history, Shaolin kung fu and iPhone assembly lines, is mentioned on about a third of the 64 pages in the Sun indictment. A lengthy passage refers to the 2019 trip to the province by the association leaders who delivered Meng’s letter, alleging it included an effort to compel Hochul to visit.

The association president, Zhang, told Sun that if Hochul didn’t go, he and Meng’s aide Li “would be embarrassed to return to Henan province," the indictment says. Sun assured him, they were all a “team."

Ultimately, Hochul didn’t visit China, though in 2021 Sun took the then-new governor to meet the Henan association leadership at a Flushing reception. For a commemorative photo, Sun sat between Hochul and Zhang.

The Journal has reported how an earlier photo of Sun and Zhang had already caught the attention of the FBI: In 2019, the two posed in Beijing’s Great Hall of the People to celebrate the Chinese Communist Party’s 70th year in power.

Over the years, Meng, like Sun, has joined numerous Henan association events along with Zhang. The congresswoman said her interactions are benign: “I go there to wish them happy Lunar New Year or whatever the occasion is."

Jazper Lu contributed to this article.

Write to James T. Areddy at James.Areddy@wsj.com