By Philip Lenczycki
New York Democratic Rep. Grace Meng has repeatedly met with visiting Chinese Communist Party (CCP) officials and intel personnel alongside a civic association she was listed as belonging to for years, a Daily Caller News Foundation investigation discovered.
The six-term congresswoman has publicly toasted CCP intel chiefs, awarded congressional commendations to Communist Party bosses and received numerous gifts during more than a dozen events welcoming Chinese government delegations to New York City since 2008, according to a DCNF review of hundreds of Chinese government, media and civic association reports.
Meng attended all these events alongside leaders of the Henan Association of Eastern America (HAEA), a Chinese civic group she joined in 2008 as “deputy chairwoman,” the DCNF previously reported. After being elected to Congress in 2012, Meng continued to meet with Chinese officials and maintained an “honorary” role in HAEA, raising concerns among China experts over her connections to CCP intelligence operations and an accused Chinese agent.
“It’s extremely troubling that a sitting Democrat in Congress has literally welcomed Chinese Communist Party influence into our country,” Indiana Republican Rep. Jim Banks told the DCNF. “This deserves further investigation, and at the least shows the dangers of United Front groups; why members of foreign influence operations must follow the law and register under FARA; and why the worst groups like the Henan Association should be designated as foreign missions of Communist China.”
‘Targeted By The CCP’
The vast majority of Meng’s meetings with Chinese communist dignitaries emerged from her relationship with HAEA, an ethnic association based in New York City that federal prosecutors have linked to CCP influence operations, according to The Wall Street Journal. (RELATED: EXCLUSIVE: Alleged Chinese Spy Spent Years Rubbing Elbows With Dem Congresswoman)
For over a decade, Meng’s photo was prominently featured at the top of HAEA’s home page until the entire website was deleted on Sept. 26, following DCNF reports on her years-long involvement in the organization. The links above point to screenshots made by web.archive.org.
Meng recently denied having ever held any official position with HAEA when asked about it by the WSJ, claiming she only ever had an “honorary title.” Meng also claimed she had “no recollection” of a 2008 video in which she identified herself as HAEA’s “deputy chairwoman.”
However, Meng disclosed her HAEA affiliation on several other occasions, including in statements Meng made to the organization posted to its website in January 2009. She has similarly indicated she belongs to the group several other times.
HAEA’s leadership includes multiple individuals who simultaneously hold positions with the All-China Federation Of Returned Overseas Chinese (ACFROC), which is an “agency” of a Chinese influence and intelligence service called the United Front Work Department (UFWD).
ACFROC’s records identify HAEA’s president, Zhang Fuyin, as an “overseas advisors,” and reports with photos from ACFROC and HAEA likewise identify several other HAEA leaders, including its chairman, as ACFROC officials.
The WSJ recently identified Zhang as an unindicted, and unnamed, co-conspirator in the U.S. Department of Justice’s (DOJ) indictment of Linda Sun, the former director of operations for Meng’s 2012 congressional campaign. The indictment alleges Sun and her husband acted as unregistered agents of China while Sun worked for two New York governors. Sun and her husband have pleaded not guilty.
Following the indictment, the WSJ reported Sun had met the “heads of key groups identifiable in the indictment as being United Front-linked,” naming HAEA and another New York Chinese association.
Zhang and HAEA’s deputy chairman, Sydney Li, who also serves as Meng’s congressional aide, visited China together in April 2019, during which Li presented a letter from Meng to the Henan provincial chairwoman of ACFROC, the WSJ recently reported. The 2019 trip is referenced in the DOJ’s indictment of Sun, though Zhang and Li are not named.
But that’s not the only time Meng’s letters have been hand-delivered to CCP officials. Li has hand-delivered letters from Meng to CCP intel and Propaganda Department officials on at least five occasions, according to photos and Chinese-language media reports reviewed by the DCNF.
In one instance, Li presented a letter on behalf of Meng to a visiting Henan Propaganda Department official in September 2018, according to Chinese-language news outlet Sina. In another, the Sichuan provincial branch of ACFROC announced Li had delivered a letter from Meng to its Deputy Party Secretary in June 2019.
Li also attended two meetings in Shenyang, China in 2017, ACFROC social media posts show. In March 2017, Li met with UFWD and ACFROC officials, and in July he sat down again with ACFROC officials. During both meetings, Li expressed his willingness to help, either by promoting economic development in northeast China or by assisting ACFROC to expand in the U.S. through unspecified means.
The DCNF found no evidence indicating Meng disclosed her position as HAEA’s deputy chairwoman on her congressional “Calendar Year 2012 Financial Disclosure Statement,” which required her to list executive positions from that calendar year and the year prior regardless of whether or not income was earned.
Meng’s office, HAEA, Zhang and Li did not return multiple requests for comment.
“The Chinese Communist Party is always working to extend its reach to American soil,” Michigan Republican Rep. John Moolenaar, chairman of the House Select Committee on the CCP, told the DCNF. (RELATED: EXCLUSIVE: Dem Rep Once Praised High-Ranking Chinese Communist’s ‘Leadership,’ Unearthed Footage Shows)
“As part of its mission to subvert the United States, the CCP uses its main influence arm, the United Front, to target American elites, including in business and in the public sector. That’s why the Select Committee has worked on a bipartisan basis to expand awareness of United Front work among Members of Congress, as well to highlight the danger United Front work poses to our country and to communities often targeted by the CCP.”
[Image created by DCNF with HAEA, Chinese government + Creaders photos]
‘Glory For The Motherland’
Meng recently acknowledged attending Chinese civic association events “to wish them happy Lunar New Year or whatever the occasion is,” the WSJ reported. Yet, posts on HAEA’s website and Chinese-language news articles reveal that prior to joining Congress, Meng also met with at least half a dozen high-level CCP delegations while serving as HAEA’s deputy chairwoman.
The first meeting occurred less than two weeks after Meng won the Sept. 9, 2008, New York State Assembly Democratic primary, when China’s then-premier, Wen Jiabao, visited the state to attend a United Nations summit.
Photos show HAEA members — including Meng’s staffer, Li — lining the streets of New York City on Sept. 23, 2008 to welcome Wen Jiabao. That day, prominent members of various Chinese civic associations — including Meng and HAEA’s chairman — were photographed together with Wen Jiabao during a meeting at the Waldorf Astoria.
At the event, Wen Jiabao urged ethnic Chinese living overseas to serve “the motherland,” according to China News Service, a state-run media outlet controlled by the UFWD.
“Chinese from the mainland, Hong Kong, and Taiwan are all members of one Chinese ethnicity, all are leaves on the motherland’s great tree, whose roots are connected in the motherland’s soil and nobody can split them — this is a blood tie,” Wen Jiabao told the assembled Chinese civic leaders. “Overseas Chinese need to unite, make progress and win glory for the motherland.”
“Grace Meng’s actions are extremely suspicious,” China expert Gordon Chang told the DCNF. “It’s time to convene a grand jury.”
After meeting Wen Jiabao, Meng attended several back-to-back HAEA banquets for visiting CCP delegations, according to the organization’s website.
On Dec. 15, 2008, HAEA hosted a welcome dinner for Henan provincial officials visiting New York to “strengthen ties” with HAEA. Photos from HAEA’s website show Meng delivered a speech during the dinner beside the delegation’s head, who, among other roles, was chairman of a Henan UFWD affiliate tasked with subverting foreign leaders called the Chinese People’s Association For Friendship With Foreign Countries (CPAFFC).
The following week, Meng attended a welcome banquet in Queens, New York on Dec. 22, 2008 for ACFROC’s chairman, Lin Jun, which the DCNF recently reported. Footage from the banquet shows Meng praising “our Chairman Lin” for his leadership.
Two months later, the Henan CPAFFC chairman who’d led the Dec. 15, 2008 delegation returned to New York in February 2009 with his boss, Henan’s governor. HAEA leaders welcomed the CCP delegation at JFK Airport, where they had a stretch Hummer limousine waiting. Meng was photographed two days later at a farewell banquet for the delegation on February 12, 2009.
One snapshot shows Meng, Henan’s CPAFFC chairman, the Henan governor, and HAEA leaders under a banner written in broken English that read: “Welcome The People’s Government of Henan Province Delegation Visit New York!” Several Chinese civic leaders who’d been present when Meng met Premier Wen Jiabao and ACFROC’s Chairman Lin also appear in these event photos.
Later in 2009, HAEA’s photos show that Meng accepted a gold engraving from a high-ranking CCP official — the deputy mayor of Shangqiu, Henan — during a November 2009 welcome banquet for his visiting delegation.
Meng and HAEA welcomed a sixth CCP delegation in July 2011, which was led by a former CPAFFC and UFWD official, who then oversaw “discipline inspection work” for Henan’s Foreign Affairs Office. China’s Commission For Discipline Inspection serves as the Party’s internal police and plays a key role in a Ministry of Public Security initiative that forcibly repatriates Chinese nationals back to China to face charges for alleged crimes, according to the DOJ.
“Very few Americans are aware of the hostile work of the UFWD, whose responsibilities are to gather intelligence on elite leaders, manage their relations with them and gain influence over them, that essentially involves weaponizing corruption, so they can advance their political, ideological, economic, and security objectives,” Joseph Cella, a former U.S. ambassador and co-founder of the Michigan-China Economic and Security Review Group, told the DCNF.
“The propaganda of the CCP is sophisticated and impactful, and one of gravest threats to our national security is when it is manifested through the capture of government elites, through the UFWD,” Cella said. “In this threat environment emanating from the CCP, our posture must be commensurate to provide for our common defense and protect our national security.”
[Image created by DCNF with pictures from ACFROC, Qiaowang, Sina and screenshots from Louis Zhao YouTube account]
‘Too Many Suspicious Contacts’
One month before HAEA celebrated the launch of Meng’s 2012 congressional campaign, her title was changed from “deputy chairwoman” to “honorary chairwoman” — a position she was listed as holding up until the recent deletion of HAEA’s website.
While serving as honorary chairwoman, Meng attended at least six banquets in New York for high-level CCP delegations, according to a DCNF review of HAEA’s website, ACFROC announcements and Chinese-language news articles:
- December 7, 2012: Meng attended a HAEA banquet for a visiting Henan CPAFFC director and delivered a speech beside them, saying she hoped to travel to Henan in the future, according to HAEA’s website.
- February 17, 2013: Meng received calligraphy during a February 2013 HAEA banquet from a visiting Henan CPAFFC director, who led his provincial theatrical troupe to perform songs from a CCP Propaganda Department-awarded opera at the reception.
- February 7, 2014: Meng awarded a congressional commendation to the CCP official who’d given her a gold engraving in November 2009 during a HAEA banquet for Henan CCP officials and UFWD personnel, according to a HAEA announcement.
- August 15, 2015: Meng received a plaque during a HAEA banquet featuring the ACFROC chairs of Jilin and Heilongjiang provinces.
- August 2, 2016: Meng received calligraphy from a Linyi, Shandong CCP delegation that included personnel from the Overseas Chinese Affairs Office, which later officially came under the control of the UFWD. During the event, Linyi’s Overseas Chinese Affairs Office and two New York Shandong associations jointly established a New York “talent recruitment work station,” which, according to Chinese espionage expert Alex Joske, are “often linked to the CCP’s United Front system.”
- September 11, 2016: Meng and HAEA members dined with the Henan provincial ACFROC chairwoman.
More recently, Meng and HAEA worked with Henan ACFROC to distribute medical masks to Queens’ residents during the COVID-19 pandemic in May 2020.
Footage shows Meng and HAEA leaders standing in front of a banner thanking Henan’s ACFROC for “donating personal protective equipment to New York.” Federal reports note that, during the pandemic, the UFWD orchestrated a global campaign to hoard medical supplies and the Chinese government donated such goods to countries with “political conditions, such as public statements of gratitude.”
Meng and HAEA leaders also banqueted with visiting Shandong CCP and intel officials in New York in March 2024, according to a DCNF review of a Chinese-language World Journal report and event footage.
The delegation was led by Shandong’s deputy governor, who was appointed UFWD chief of Qingdao city in March 2022. Meng sat beside the deputy governor during dinner and footage shows Shandong’s CPAFFC executive deputy chairwoman spoke with Meng while she ate.
“Meng has too many suspicious contacts and actions in her past, so we have to ask: Is she more loyal to America or China?” author Gordon Chang told the DCNF.
