(The Epoch Times)—Linda Sun, former deputy chief of staff to the New York governor, was arrested by the FBI for spying for Beijing on Sept. 3. The next day, it was announced the New York Chinese consul general was no longer in his position, coinciding with a request from Gov. Kathy Hochul to the State Department to expel him.
Analysts say the case serves as a warning to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and its agents hiding within the U.S. government.
In its indictment, the Department of Justice (DOJ), says Sun violated the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) and is charged with 10 counts, including visa fraud, money laundering, and accepting benefits to engage in activities that benefit China and the CCP. Her businessman husband, Christopher Hu, 40, was also charged with multiple crimes, including money laundering.
Sun acted at the request of CCP officials and “engaged in numerous political activities in the interests of the PRC and the CCP, including blocking representatives of the Taiwanese government from having access to high-level New York State officers,” the DOJ said in a press release.
The charges against Sun also include “changing high-level New York State officers’ messaging regarding issues of importance to the PRC and the CCP; obtaining official New York State proclamations for PRC government representatives without proper authorization,” and “arranging meetings for visiting delegations from the PRC government with New York State government officials” among others.
The DOJ said Sun received “substantial economic and other benefits” from the CCP for these activities. PRC is the acronym for China’s official name: the People’s Republic of China.
Sun, 41, also known as Wen Sun, is a naturalized U.S. citizen who was born in Nanjing, China, and moved to the United States with her parents at the age of 5.
She worked in the New York state government for about 15 years. In 2009, Sun served as chief of staff to New York State Assembly representative Grace Meng, a Democrat, who is currently a member of the U.S. House of Representatives. In 2012, Sun joined the New York state government of Gov. Andrew Cuomo and later served as deputy chief of staff to Lt. Gov. Kathy Hochul, now the governor.
Infiltrating US Government
Wang Juntao, chairman of the National Committee of the China Democratic Party, said the case is especially important to people like himself—overseas Chinese activists who publicly protest against the CCP’s tyranny—because “those in the U.S. government who speak for and act on behalf of the CCP are the ones who should be the main focus of U.S. law enforcement’s crackdown.”
Wang said that the United States started the crackdown on CCP agents in the United States through FARA under former President Donald Trump, and then, “President Biden systematized it, since then the Western world has formed a unified containment of the CCP’s overseas spying operations.”
U.S.-based current affairs commentator Tang Jingyuan told The Epoch Times that Sun’s case is somewhat special because, in the past, most of the CCP spies arrested by the FBI were overseas Chinese community leaders or those posing as democracy activists.
“They were mainly engaged in transnational repression or collecting intelligence on Chinese dissidents in the United States, mostly in the field of human rights,” he said.
Sun’s case is different, Tang said, “mainly because she holds a high position in the U.S. government system, which affects many policies in New York State and even involves U.S. diplomatic relations.”
Tony Hu, a former U.S. Department of Defense official, told The Epoch Times that any U.S. civil servant must understand that, whether in the federal, state, or local government, “as long as you are a civil servant, you cannot use the convenience of your job to help foreign government. This will definitely be punished by U.S. law.”
Hu emphasized that civil servants “are supposed to help their country, state, and city—not foreign countries.”
Chinese Consulate Middleman
U.S. State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said at a press conference on Sept. 4 that New York Chinese consul general Huang Ping left his post, but “was not expelled.”
“Our understanding is that the consul general reached the end of a regular scheduled rotation in August,” Miller said.
Huang had served as the consul general in New York since November 2018. According to the CCP’s “Regulations on the Tenure, Seniority and Vacations of Permanent Personnel in Embassies and Consulates Abroad,” the general term of a consul general is three years, so Huang’s term should end in November this year.
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Taiwanese retired Maj. Gen. Yu Tsung-chi, an adviser to the Formosa Republican Association, said the United States chose to accept the expiration of Huang’s term instead of demanding expulsion “to avoid enraging China to take the same expulsion measures to retaliate.”
“Then it would become a mutual revenge between democratic and totalitarian countries, which will blur the focus of the case. Therefore, the United States obviously wants to downplay such a serious intelligence infiltration incident in a low-key manner,” Yu told The Epoch Times.
Wang said that the CCP has deployed secret agents all over the United States.
Wang said that based on his knowledge and his connections in the CCP’s top political and military circles, for the CCP’s overseas agents “the Chinese consulate’s role is less significant [in the CCP’s espionage activities], and Beijing is directly controlling the overseas agents through the United Front Work Department from behind the scenes. Therefore, despite that the FBI has put a lot of effort, sometimes it is difficult to find evidence.”
The United Front Work Department is the Chinese regime’s spy and propaganda agency that also controls the regime’s transnational repression campaigns against overseas dissidents.
“The center of the CCP’s spy network is in Beijing. They mostly have exclusive contacts and will not let others know. The Chinese consulate itself also knows that they are actually under [the U.S. government’s] surveillance,” Wang said.
“The Chinese consulate also does deals with some American entrepreneurs, but the Chinese consulate is too conspicuous. The consulate will attend some activities of overseas Chinese groups, but they are not the ones who make the real arrangements.”
A CCP overseas agent who defected and fled to Australia, said that he directly took orders from the CCP’s secret police in Beijing.
Luo Ya, Ning Haizhong, and Fei Zhen contributed to this report.
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