The Chinese consulate-general in New York demanded that the U.S. put a halt to what it characterizes as a smear campaign.
The Chinese consulate-general in New York demanded that the U.S. put a halt to what it characterizes as a smear campaign, after it was linked to the Chinese police station in Lower Manhattan. It characterized those ties as part of its “normal” work.
Last week, I reported on the return to public life of the America ChangLe Association, a group that represents immigrants from China’s Fujian province, months after two of its leaders were charged by the Justice Department with acting as unregistered agents of China and obstructing justice. The two defendants had allegedly operated a police station on behalf of the Chinese authorities in Lower Manhattan, while one of them, Lu Jianwang, is accused of helping the Chinese Ministry of Public Security locate a dissident in the U.S. The America ChangLe Association withdrew from the public activities in which it had previously engaged for several months, after it was initially accused of operating a Chinese police station, but on July 4, it returned, hosting a celebration of sorts for Independence Day at its now-infamous clubhouse in Manhattan.
Asked about that event and its own ties to the Chinese police station and the America ChangLe Association — which are documented in the indictment — the Chinese consulate-general defended its conduct.
“The Chinese Consulate General in New York has been conducting normal exchanges with various sectors of society, including Overseas Chinese, in its consular district in accordance with laws and regulations,” the consulate-general’s press team said in an email to National Review this week. “China never interferes in other countries’ internal affairs.”
The Justice Department maintains otherwise, alleging that Lu had been in contact with the consulate-general, and that several senior consular officials visited the America ChangLe clubhouse in 2022, when it featured a banner on the wall advertising the police station. Litang Liang, a defendant in a similar case accused of harassing Beijing’s opponents in New England, was in regular contact with consular officials, according to court documents.
But in Beijing’s view, prosecuting people involved in those alleged activities is wrong — and part of a smear campaign, too. In its statement to NR, the Chinese consulate-general urged the U.S. to take a different approach.
“We hope that the US could do more to promote people-to-people exchanges and cooperation between China and the US, stop smearing Chinese diplomatic missions in the US, and stop politically persecuting individuals engaged in normal exchanges and cooperation with China,” the statement added.