Exclusive: NYC Mayor Eric Adams Skipped Banquet for Taiwan’s President after Lobbying by Chinese Diplomat

City Hall has not said why the mayor did not attend the event.

N ew York City’s mayor, Eric Adams, skipped a banquet honoring Taiwan’s president after a top Chinese diplomat sent him a letter warning that his attendance at the March 2023 function could cost New York its “friendship” with China.

The Chinese lobbying, revealed here for the first time, sheds light on Chinese Communist Party campaigns to influence key state and local officials — in this case, as part of a broader push to isolate Taiwan on the global stage.

In a letter to the mayor hours before the banquet, Chinese consul general Huang Ping said he learned that Adams or other officials in his administration had been invited; he urged that “the City government avoid any kind of official contact with Tsai when she is in New York City.”

Adams and other top officials from City Hall did not attend the event, and it’s not clear why. Over the past week, City Hall did not respond to multiple emails and a text message requesting comment. But Adams and his team have forged a strong working relationship with the Chinese outpost.

“It is incumbent on elected officials in the U.S. to be more mindful of not being subject to undue malign influence or appear so by the Chinese party-state,” said Russell Hsiao, the executive director of the Global Taiwan Institute.

The Chinese government’s role in setting up illegal overseas police stations and carrying out repression on U.S. soil should make Americans wary of interacting with Chinese officials, Hsiao said, adding that when it comes to conversations with the Chinese consulate general, “My concerns are less about the fact that they interacted, than what the specific asks were.”

National Review — via a request filed under New York State’s Freedom of Information Law — obtained Huang’s letter and other correspondence between City Hall and the Chinese consulate general, which is located in Manhattan. The records disclosed under the law show that, for weeks leading up to Taiwanese president Tsai Ing-wen’s visit, Huang personally lobbied City Hall officials against interacting with the Taiwanese. They also show that Adams’s team was arranging a dinner slated to take place at Huang’s official residence around the same time.

Beijing asserts that Taiwan is part of China, and it views the island country’s ruling Democratic Progressive Party as a traitorous separatist movement.

During Tsai’s trip to New York City in March 2023, she was greeted by a crowd of pro-Beijing demonstrators who referred to her as a “troublemaker.” They were reportedly paid by the Chinese consulate general.

The Chinese-government interference continued when she went to California days later for a meeting with congressional members at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library.

Ahead of that meeting, the Chinese embassy sent several emails to the lawmakers who planned to take part, warning that China “will not sit idly by in the face of a blatant provocation,” as National Review first reported.

The New York City Hall correspondence recently obtained by NR shows how Huang’s team undertook a similar effort targeting New York officials using a slightly softer touch.

In the March 29, 2023, letter to Adams, Huang wrote:

I am writing to draw your attention to Tsai Ing-wen’s trip to the United States and her activities in New York City from March 29 to 30. We just learned that the Mayor, Deputy Mayor or representatives from the Mayor Office of New York City were invited to a reception welcoming Tsai’s visit on March 29 and to other public events also joined by Tsai. I express my deep concerns on that.

Taiwan question is the most important and most sensitive issue at the very heart of China-U.S. relations. The one-China principle is the centerpiece of the three China-U.S. Joint Communiqués, in which the U.S. side makes the clear commitment that the people of the U.S. will maintain cultural, commercial, and other unofficial relations with the people of Taiwan.

I would like to remind the New York City government of paying more attention to our concerns and dealing with Taiwan Question with extra caution. We also hope that the City government avoid any kind of official contact with Tsai when she is in New York City.

China always pays high attention to the cooperation with New York City and cherishes the friendship between the two sides. I sincerely hope the momentum of our communication and cooperation will continue and would not be affected by other issues. I look forward to meeting you in person in the near future.

Huang seemed to be referring primarily to a banquet welcoming Tsai, which was hosted by local Taiwanese expatriates later that evening.

Mayor Adams’s absence from that event was conspicuous considering that the event took place in Manhattan but was attended by political heavy-hitters from out of state, including New Jersey governor Phil Murphy and New Jersey lawmakers, in addition to New York state senator Iwen Chu, who was born in Taiwan.

The records show that a staffer from the consulate initially sent Huang’s March 29 letter to Winnie Greco, a senior adviser to Adams, so that she could get it to the mayor. While Greco’s title is director of Asian affairs, she has acted as his de facto liaison to Chinese government entities, including the consulate general, for about a decade when she served Adams in a voluntary role during his time as Brooklyn Borough president.

Greco, who immigrated from China’s Fujian Province in the 1990s, forwarded it to Edward Mermelstein, New York City’s commissioner for international affairs, and senior officials on his team. It’s not clear what she told them in this message, as City Hall redacted its contents, asserting an exemption under the Freedom of Information Law.

Greco also forwarded Huang’s letter for Adams to Gladys Miranda, another senior adviser to Adams, and to Adams’s scheduler, Angel Cheng.

The documents indicate that Huang’s effort to directly lobby Adams started several weeks before he sent the March 29 letter, and he also targeted Mermelstein. Huang called the Adams appointee twice in March to urge New York officials to steer clear of events with Tsai.

“Consul General Huang will speak with the Commissioner about an event that will happen tonight, which is also related to the topic of their phone call earlier this month,” a Chinese official wrote, requesting the second call with Mermelstein, which took place the afternoon of March 29.

After that conversation, the consulate general followed up with a letter to Mermelstein that used language identical to the Adams letter.

Adams might also have spoken with Huang earlier in March. On March 3, a Chinese consular official emailed Greco with an “urgent” request for a call. At the time, Tsai’s precise itinerary was not publicly known, but media reports had revealed that she was planning a trip to the U.S.

Greco forwarded the call request to Mermelstein and his team, though City Hall redacted those emails, and it’s not clear how officials handled the call request or whether the call happened.

Then, on March 15, a Chinese consular official emailed Greco to propose a dinner meeting between Huang and Adams at the former’s official residence, with possible dates in the end of March and early April.

Greco passed along the email to Mermelstein, following up later to say that she had asked the Chinese official to fill out a meeting-request form.

City Hall did not confirm that the meeting happened. The Chinese consulate general did not respond to requests for comment.

Federal-government warnings about the Chinese consulate general’s ties to stalking schemes and other crimes on U.S. soil have grown louder in recent years.

Last year, federal prosecutors linked Chinese-consulate officials to defendants in two separate cases brought against alleged Chinese agents who helped Beijing hunt dissidents in America. In one of these cases, two men had allegedly set up an illegal Chinese-government-run police station in Manhattan’s Chinatown. According to DOJ court filings, senior Chinese consular officials visited the Chinese police facility.

The previous year, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence said in a counterintelligence bulletin that the Chinese embassy and Chinese consulates in America play a role in influence operations.

The FBI is interviewing Chinese-community members about the consulate general’s role in the March 2023 anti-Taiwan protest and in other activities around New York, according to a report last month by Documented, a news website focused on immigration issues.

None of that has deterred Adams, who has appeared with Huang in public numerous times since he won election in 2021, or top officials in his administration. In January, Adams and Huang both attended a gala in New York for the China Media Group, a Chinese state media organ controlled by the CCP’s central propaganda department.

City Hall is even promising to deepen its relationship with Chinese governmental entities. In February, Mermelstein attended a Lunar New Year reception at the consulate general. “New York City–China relations have always been good and will only get better,” he said, according to China’s Xinhua News Agency, a state media organ.

Greco also regularly attends functions at the consulate general, such as an event celebrating the founding of China’s communist regime last fall. She now faces federal law-enforcement scrutiny from an office known for its work on China-related cases.

In February, the FBI raided two of her properties in the Bronx. While reports indicate that the government is principally interested in a possible straw-donor scheme, this probe is being conducted by prosecutors with the U.S. attorney’s office in the Eastern District of New York, which has brought several cases related to China in recent years, including the Chinese-police-station case. (No one has been charged in relation to the Greco probe, and Adams maintains that his team follows the law.)

Adams and his team have long-standing ties to one of the defendants in that case, Harry Lu, and his brother James, who were both leaders of the community group that hosted the police station. James Lu donated $2,500 to Adams’s 2021 campaign for mayor, which he returned after Harry Lu’s arrest last year. The defendant is also linked to the Chinese consulate general through his participation in the anti-Tsai protest in March 2023. Greco and Harry Lu were both part of a delegation representing Adams, then the Brooklyn Borough president, during a 2019 meeting in Fuzhou, China, with officials from that city, National Review previously reported.