How Beijing Recruited New York Chinatowns for Influence Campaign

In early April 2019, Rep. Grace Meng was launching into a busy legislative week on Capitol Hill. The same day in the central Chinese province of Henan, two Meng associates were delivering a letter of appreciation from her to the chief of an international influence operation managed by the Chinese Communist Party.

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.