Hochul seems to keep ignoring federal-government warnings that Beijing uses its relationships with state and local officials to advance its geopolitical aims.
A senior aide to Governor Kathy Hochul took part in a Chinese propaganda event hosted at a New York Mets game on Friday, reflecting the New York leader’s long-running engagement with China and friendship with a top Chinese diplomat in New York.
The baseball team has held the event, called “An Evening of Chinese Culture,” annually for 14 years in tandem with the Sino-American Friendship Association (SAFA), a nonprofit group with numerous ties to Beijing’s political-influence operations.
Although the Washington Post reported on the association’s Chinese Communist Party ties last year, and the way in which pro-Beijing actors use the event to whitewash the Chinese regime’s bad behavior, the Mets chose to hold the event again last week.
Elaine Fan, Hochul’s director of Asian-American affairs, was at the event, according to the Chinese consulate-general, which published a detailed summary of the evening. Fan has represented Hochul at other Chinese-government-linked events, including a dragon-boat festival in Queens backed by Hong Kong’s government earlier this month.
The continued interactions of Hochul and her staff with Chinese government offices and other pro-Beijing entities are noteworthy in light of an effort by the federal government to warn officials at the state and local levels that Beijing leverages its relationships with those officials to press its agenda and advance its geopolitical aims. Hochul’s office did not respond to a request for comment from National Review about why the governor viewed it as appropriate to send Fan to Friday’s event.
In July of last year, the National Counterintelligence and Security Center issued a bulletin warning state and local officials that the Chinese government conducts political-influence work through several agencies, including the United Front Work Department, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of State Security, and various front groups.
“Leaders at the U.S. state, local, tribal, and territorial levels risk being manipulated to support hidden PRC agendas,” the NCSC document said. “PRC influence operations can be deceptive and coercive, with seemingly benign business opportunities or people-to-people exchanges sometimes masking PRC political agendas.”
While the Mets and SAFA were the only official organizers of the event, the Chinese consulate-general plays a leading role in the evening every year, and this year, Chinese consul-general Huang Ping threw the first pitch at Friday’s game, spoke at a pre-game ceremony, and received an award from the Mets.
That’s noteworthy because the Department of Justice has said in recent court filings that the diplomatic outpost that Huang oversees has organized harassment campaigns targeting Beijing’s opponents in the U.S. He has also staked out hard-line pro-CCP positions, denying the Chinese government’s atrocities against Uyghurs and Tibetans.
But on Friday, Huang sought to show New Yorkers China’s softer side, posing for pictures with panda mascots and unveiling the Chinese government’s new “Nihao! China” tourism campaign at a pre-game ceremony.
“The event serves as an important platform to showcase the amazement of Chinese culture and the fusion of Eastern and Western cultures,” Huang wrote on Twitter.
The Mets did not respond to National Review’s request for comment about why it honored a hardline CCP official. “Once again it’s the marketing guys at a professional sports franchise, who want to assign moral courage in every ball caught, whiffing when it comes to the morals of not teaming up with the apologists for repressive regimes,” Mark Simon, longtime adviser to jailed Hong Kong pro-democracy icon Jimmy Lai, told NR last week.
According to the Chinese consulate-general’s website, other attendees included the director of the Chinese Tourism Office in New York, Ma Yunfei; SAFA president Peter Zhang; and representatives from travel agencies, airlines, and other tourism-industry companies. New York City mayor Eric Adams sent a congratulatory message to the event, the consulate-general said.
Throughout her political career, Hochul has expressed a commitment to building out a close relationship with Beijing. She has repeatedly spoken at events hosted by the China-U.S. General Chamber of Commerce, and at one gala hosted by the business lobby in 2022, she hailed “our beautiful relationship between our countries, China and the United States, China and New York, amazing partners as we continue to work together collaboratively.”
Earlier this year, her office published video from a parade where she marched next to Huang, who has referred to Hochul as an “old friend.” During that parade, which took place just after the Chinese-spy-balloon incident in February, she also waved the People’s Republic of China flag.