This January, more than a dozen hometown associations, all with ties to the consulate and six of them tax-exempt nonprofits, put on a lively fund-raising dinner for Susan Zhuang (pic), a Chinese immigrant running for re-election to City Council after biting a police officer at a homeless shelter protest. Zhuang had won her seat in 2023 after old photos surfaced of her opponent in the Democratic primary, Wai-Yee Chan, at a Manhattan rally for Hong Kong democracy. At the time of the rally, Zhuang shared a post on Facebook accusing Chan of “supporting violent Hong Kong independence.” When the two women later ran against each other for City Council, prominent members of several community groups recirculated the rally photos on WeChat and said Chan held extreme positions. Some community leaders urged Chan to take out newspaper advertisements holding the Chinese flag, “to show what side she’s on,” recalled Grace Safarik, her campaign manager. “It was bananas.” The candidate did not run any such ads. Hometown associations soon dumped Chan and threw their support behind Zhuang. Since then, Zhuang has appeared alongside consulate officials on at least 30 occasions. As a City Council member, Zhuang has distributed more than $300,000 in city funds to tax-exempt Chinese American nonprofits that backed her. The majority of the funds went to organizations with close ties to Beijing. At the January fund-raiser, some of the same group leaders showed up to the Fortune Palace restaurant in Brooklyn to support her again. Atop lavender tablecloths were signs denoting the names of various hometown organizations. That day, Zhuang’s campaign raised more than $20,000 in donations. One donor, Huang Yirong of the Zhanjiang Association of America — a nonprofit that shares a house with the councilwoman’s campaign office — had helped organize opposition to the visiting president of Taiwan in 2023. Huang said his group did not endorse or donate to Zhuang’s campaign. “I support her, and some of our members support her. We give and support individually.” The emcee of the event, Joseph Luo, president of the American Association of Cantonese, had met in China in 2023 with leaders of groups belonging to the CCP’s United Front. “We want her to be re-elected. Re-elected!” shouted John Yu of the Guangdong Association of America, a tax-exempt nonprofit that has hosted many events with the consulate. Benny Lau, the president of the Guangdong Association, said that while individual members supported the candidate, the group had not crossed the line into direct political advocacy. Zhuang: “I find it insulting that Asian American elected officials constantly have to defend our heritage because of these guilty-by-association rumors.” “racism” again, typical CCP tactic to mislead the audience — no, it’s not about “Asian American”; it’s about your ties to Beijing and the CCP Zhuang is expected to win her second term; no one is running against her.

China has gone to great lengths to stamp out global support of Taiwan. After State Senator John Liu, who was born there, attended a meeting in New York with the Taiwanese president in 2019, “intermediaries” for the consulate contacted his office. They “made it clear that they felt it was inappropriate for me to attend that event.” Hometown associations rescinded his invitations to their banquets. In 2021, a top FBI agent warned state lawmakers that consulate officers used both threats and sweeteners to influence politicians, including those who support Taiwan. When Taiwan’s president held another reception in New York City two years later, the head of the consulate warned the mayor, Eric Adams, to avoid contact. He did not go. But Iwen Chu (left in pic), a Taiwan native in the State Senate, attended the reception — and paid a hefty price. In the days after the event, diplomats invited members of hometown associations to the consulate. There, officials asked about Chu’s position on Taiwanese independence. “I said I didn’t know anything about that,” Zhen Jinrong, one of the attendees and a longtime leader of the Taishan Friendship Association, recalled. Soon Chu herself heard from the consulate. A diplomat asked for a meeting between the senator and a consulate deputy “to talk with her on cooperation between New York and China.” Chu met with Li Shipeng (right in pic), a deputy consul general, in April 2023 at Boca del Cielo, a cafe in the Bay Ridge neighborhood of Brooklyn. After some small talk, the diplomat got to the point: People were upset about the banquet, he said, describing the situation as “explosive”. “They were giving me pressure,” Chu recalled. The senator told the diplomat that she was focused on New York, not global affairs. But it was too late. By Feb 2024, John Chan, the onetime smuggler and Beijing’s top power broker in New York, as well as the founder of a group representing people from the city of Fuzhou, was vetting a Republican to run against Chu, a Democrat. In his Sunset Park office, Chan grilled the would-be candidate — Steve Chan, a former Marine and police sergeant. Lester Chang, a Republican state assemblyman, was there, too. John Chan, who had once called the Taiwanese president “a sinner for all eternity,” asked the sergeant how he felt about Hong Kong and Taiwan. Steve Chan replied that he supported Hong Kong democracy and that China should leave Taiwan alone. The candidate was then asked if he wanted to revise his answer, and Steve Chan softened his response, suggesting a continuation of the status quo. Steve Chan said he did not change his stance in that meeting. Whatever he said, it convinced John Chan, who later endorsed the candidate at a hometown association event, with two members of the consulate in attendance. One by one, leaders of groups that had once backed Chu flipped to Steve Chan. He easily defeated her in November, costing Democrats their supermajority. Several community leaders said that Chu was quite popular before the “scandal” over the Taiwanese dinner. “If Iwen hadn’t attended that event, 100 percent she would have won,” said Mr. Zhen of the Taishan Friendship Association. Justin Yu, a former president of the Consolidated Chinese Benevolent Association, which includes more than 60 groups, said he believed that the consulate “mobilized some of the organizations in Brooklyn to boycott Iwen Chu.” Steve Chan on why he had accepted the endorsement of John Chan, someone with prominent ties to China: “Whether you like him or not, whether he’s a Communist or not, he is very influential in his community.”