He called for more U.S.-China cooperation at a swanky gala at the Plaza Hotel, days after the DOJ linked him to an infiltration scheme.
He called for more U.S.-China cooperation at a swanky gala at the Plaza Hotel, days after the DOJ linked him to an infiltration scheme.
C onfusion reigned last week when the State Department, Governor Kathy Hochul, and the Chinese consulate general made competing claims about the status of China’s top diplomat in New York. A federal indictment had just tied him to the alleged scheme of a former Hochul aide to subvert the state governor’s office for Beijing’s purposes.
Hochul said on Wednesday that she asked the State Department to expel Huang Ping, Beijing’s consul general in New York, and that she was informed he was no longer serving in that role. But State denied that the U.S. expelled him and said Huang had left when his term ended as scheduled in August. The consulate, meanwhile, said that Huang was performing his duties as usual.
So where was he really? The answer emerged later, when it became known that Huang appeared the following day at a swanky function hosted at the Plaza Hotel. The Chinese consulate general and the China Daily CCP propaganda outlet both publicized his appearance there. Just two days after the arrest of Linda Sun, who allegedly acted at the direction of an unnamed “high-ranking government official” at the consulate, Huang delivered a cloying address calling for cooperation between the U.S. and China.
“If we would enhance people-to-people communication, if we could have more contacts, more people flow across the Pacific, having more face-to-face chatting, we will get to know each other better,” he said, two days after the Justice Department alleged that China’s government sought to infiltrate and subvert the New York governor’s office. Also at the event, for the China Institute in America — a New York nonprofit that often hosts Chinese officials for meetings — was the CEO of MSCI, Henry Fernandez.
After this story was first published, the Chinese consulate general’s press section reiterated its previous comment that Huang is performing his usual duties. It also confirmed, for the first time, that “he will complete his term and return to China as scheduled.”
Hochul is not the only official who was caught flat-footed. Hours after her comments on Wednesday, State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said: “Our understanding is that the consul general reached the end of a regular, scheduled rotation in August, and so rotated out of the position — but was not expelled.” When a reporter asked him when Huang left, Miller said: “It was the end of August, is my understanding.”
A Hochul spokesperson said that the governor merely conveyed information she was provided by Foggy Bottom. “During her press conference, the Governor conveyed information she received from the State Department, which was later confirmed by State Department Spokesman Matthew Miller: this individual was no longer in his position as Consul General,” the spokesperson told National Review. “We can’t speak to other countries’ decisions regarding which personnel are in which roles.”
But Huang also appeared in public on September 3, the day that the indictment dropped, at a farewell party hosted by the overseas Chinese community in Philadelphia, according to Radio Free Asia. The outlet translated his remarks from that event, with Huang saying that he was ordered to return to China.
“This whole situation is a mess,” said Michael Sobolik, senior fellow in Indo-Pacific studies at the American Foreign Policy Council. “The State Department appears to be treating Huang with kid gloves in order to limit the risk of retaliation from Beijing.”
It is possible that Huang’s continued presence in New York, at least as of Thursday, was due to a 30-day grace period extended to outgoing diplomats.
After referring National Review to Miller’s remarks, a State Department spokesperson did not answer a question yesterday asking whether State previously knew that Huang remained in Manhattan as of Thursday evening.
But on Wednesday, following this article’s initial publication, a State Department official responded to NR’s follow up questions by pointing to the fact that “diplomats generally have 30 days at end of their tour to depart the United States or seek a change or adjustment of their status” and adding that this is laid out in a department handbook available online. The official also told National Review: “The transition period between diplomats can vary on a case by case basis.”
Stephen Akard, a former director of the State Department’s office of foreign missions, which oversees the department’s relations with foreign diplomats posted in America, said that there are numerous questions relating to whether Huang remains accredited. These include whether there has been a notice of termination for his post, whether he’s in the grace period, whether a successor has been appointed, and whether he still enjoys consular immunities.
“Seems to me that State is (deliberately?) a little vague on terms they are using. He wasn’t expelled. He clearly is still here. Is that with U.S. consent or not?” Akard, now a partner at Bose McKinney & Evans, said via email. He also wondered whether Huang now falls outside the acceptable term of his assignment.
The indictment details Sun’s frequent communications with an unnamed “PRC Official-1,” who oversaw her efforts to block Taiwan from engaging with New York State and to prevent Hochul from mentioning China’s abuses of Uyghurs. At one point, the document alleges that PRC Official-1 directed Sun to ask an unnamed politician to thank the Chinese government for facilitating the shipment of ventilators to New York at the start of the Covid pandemic. The indictment refers to an April 4, 2020, tweet that matches the description of a message that then-governor Andrew Cuomo posted that day thanking Huang.
Hochul’s call for Huang’s expulsion was the first high-profile demand for consequences to be imposed on Chinese diplomats for their alleged ties to recent repression and foreign-influence schemes prosecuted by the Justice Department. Federal prosecutors also tied defendants in cases relating to the illegal Chinese police station in NYC and a Massachusetts man’s harassment and surveillance of anti-CCP activists to the consulate, on Manhattan’s Twelfth Avenue.
Sobolik said that Huang’s activities, as detailed in the indictment this month, amount to “textbook malign influence, and it merits retaliation from Washington.” He added: “If we’re hesitant to push back, we can expect to see more cases like this.”