The Biden State Department has seemingly ignored mounting evidence of China running influence and intel operations from its diplomatic posts. And national security experts and China hardliners say Americans shouldn’t expect the administration to take action anytime soon.
Linda Sun, a former high-level official under Gov. Kathy Hochul, was arrested on Sep. 3 on allegations of acting on behalf of China’s government at the direction of the New York Chinese consulate, adding to a growing list of allegations of Chinese influence activities. The State Department has several tools to deter Beijing and Chinese consulates from such activities but has not taken any visible measures to do so, experts told the Daily Caller News Foundation.
“There is a range of things the State Department could be doing… The least they could do is to reiterate the warnings of the previous [Trump administration], and where they see need of it, improve upon the warnings of the previous administration,” Steve Yates, a senior fellow at the America First Policy Institute (AFPI) and former national security official, told the DCNF. “That hasn’t happened, and I don’t expect it to happen now.”
Yates pointed to an example where the Trump administration shut down a Chinese consulate in Texas in 2020 over concerns that it was a hub for espionage and influence activities. The Biden administration has not closed any of the four remaining Chinese consulates located across the U.S.
Sun was accused of using to position to alter public statements to read as favorable to Beijing, block Taiwanese officials from meeting with New York officials and help smuggle foreign nationals into the U.S. using falsified immigration documents — all in exchange for bribes and gifts from the Chinese consulate, which coordinated with her and provided her guidance in committing the alleged crimes, according to Sun’s indictment.
Sun is not the only alleged Chinese operative in New York’s political orbit who has been arrested for their involvement in espionage or influence activities. The DCNF previously found that Lu Jianwang, an alleged Chinese spy who was arrested in 2023, had a long history of mingling with Democratic New York Rep. Grace Meng, who herself previously praised the Chinese Communist Party’s “leadership,” according to a separate DCNF investigation.
Lu was allegedly helping operate an illegal Chinese police station in New York City — which the FBI raided in 2023 and was eventually shuttered — that spied on and intimated critics of the Chinese government and was linked to a China-based law enforcement unit that specializes in extraditing Chinese citizens. Chinese operative Chen Jinping was arrested alongside Lu in 2023 for his alleged involvement in the police station.
Lu had received an indirect request from New York’s Chinese consulate to help counter a protest of the Chinese government in 2015, according to his federal indictment. He was also present at a protest against Taiwan in 2023 that was partially orchestrated by the consulate, according to National Review.
“China has an extensive spy and infiltration network in the United States,” John Lee, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute and former national security adviser in the Australian government, told the DCNF, noting that New York politicians who have potentially interacted malignly with Chinese operatives should face legal consequences. “I would like to see the federal government publicize these infiltrations and condemn them openly and frequently to alert Americans at all levels of government that this is occurring.”
The State Department, tasked with overseeing U.S. relations with other nations, can take a number of steps to deter Beijing, such as by confronting and issuing warnings to China’s U.S.-based consulates or issuing public condemnations, experts told the DCNF.
In certain cases, the State Department could even expel a diplomat from the U.S., a significant move that would likely be met with an equal response from Beijing. But experts told the DCNF they feel there has been an alarming lack of action from the State Department on the matter, even though the department has an annual budget of over $80 billion. and approximately 70,000 employees domestically and abroad.
“The State Department appears to be doing everything it can to downplay this situation and avoid retaliation from Beijing,” Michael Sobolik, senior fellow at the American Foreign Policy Council, told the DCNF. “Deterrence is just as real in diplomacy as it is in the military realm. The State Department is signaling that it is unwilling to make it painful for Beijing to influence U.S. politics for its own gain. That’s a mistake, one that will leave us vulnerable to future predations from the Chinese Communist Party.”
Hochul said last Wednesday that she had asked the State Department to expel Huang Ping, the highest-ranking diplomat at China’s consulate in New York, given that he frequently coordinated with Sun, according to Politico. However, State Department spokesman Matthew Miller told reporters later that day that Huang did not need to be expelled because he had already left the U.S. at the end of August as his term had ended.
But Huang was seen in New York and serving in his post as of last Thursday, according to public records. China’s Embassy in the U.S. confirmed to the DCNF in a statement thisOffice of the President of the United States_ week that Huang is “performing his duties as usual.”
The State Department told the DCNF that diplomats usually have 30 days at the end of their term to leave the U.S. or seek to change their diplomatic status.
“It is possible that they just didn’t do the due diligence to see what was going on. They accepted a talking point that wasn’t fact-checked and took it out publicly. That’s malpractice on their part, but you have to judge whether that’s major malpractice or a little screw-up,” Yates told the DCNF. ” I would think that it’s a degree of laziness on the part of the State Department. There’s also a degree of defensiveness on the part of this administration, which doesn’t want to escalate this because it is an embarrassment to them and an embarrassment to the government of New York.”
Broadly, the Biden administration has faced questions for its handling of U.S.-China relations in recent years, with some critics arguing that Beijing has failed to respond to diplomatic pressure and continues to attempt to undermine the U.S. through a variety of methods, including cyberwarfare, election interference, domestic espionage activities and drug trafficking.
Though New York has become a focal point for China’s influence activities, its malign influence extends well beyond the state and into the rest of the country, director of the China Policy Initiative at AFPI Adam Savit, told the DCNF.
“Unfortunately, New York is only one of many hotspots for CCP spying activity in the U.S.,” Savit said. “In many cases, the federal government has acted too late, or not at all.”
Featured Image Credit: Office of the President of the United States
