Trial Exposes China’s United Front Operations in New York

Lin­da Sun’s tri­al expos­es the Chi­nese Unit­ed Front Work Depart­men­t’s influ­ence oper­a­tions tar­get­ing the New York state gov­ern­ment. On 5 Decem­ber 2025, The Wash­ing­ton Times report­ed that a for­mer aide to gov­er­nors Cuo­mo and Hochul faces over 30 fed­er­al charges, includ­ing oper­at­ing as an ille­gal Chi­nese agent, with evi­dence show­ing the defen­dant bragged Hochul was “much more obe­di­ent than the gov­er­nor” in a mes­sage to a Chi­nese con­sulate offi­cial. The arti­cle begins:

The ongo­ing crim­i­nal tri­al of Lin­da Sun, a for­mer aide to two New York gov­er­nors, on ille­gal for­eign agent charges high­lights what pros­e­cu­tors say is Chi­na’s large-scale oper­a­tions to influ­ence the U.S. gov­ern­ment and the pub­lic at large to back Chi­nese Com­mu­nist Par­ty poli­cies. What ini­tial­ly began as a case of ille­gal Chi­nese influ­ence expand­ed over the past year as pros­e­cu­tors added cor­rup­tion charges against Ms. Sun and her hus­band, Chris Hu. Ms. Sun worked for for­mer Demo­c­ra­t­ic Gov. Andrew Cuo­mo and cur­rent Gov. Kathy Hochul and is charged with ille­gal­ly using her offi­cial posi­tion to pro­mote Chi­na’s inter­ests in block­ing offi­cials from Tai­wan and curb­ing state­ments relat­ed to Chi­na’s human rights abus­es of Uyghur minori­ties. Ms. Sun and Mr. Hu have plead­ed not guilty to more than 30 fed­er­al charges. Those charges include oper­at­ing as an ille­gal Chi­nese agent, visa fraud, wire fraud, mon­ey laun­der­ing, bribery, con­spir­a­cy to defraud the Unit­ed States and tax evasion.

Read more: https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2025/dec/5/trial-former-aide-new-yorks-cuomo-hochul-spotlights-massive-chinese/

Key Points

• Lin­da Sun alleged­ly forged doc­u­ments signed by gov­er­nors and steered state con­tracts to Chi­nese com­pa­nies for COVID-19 per­son­al pro­tec­tive equip­ment pur­chas­es, with pros­e­cu­tor Aman­da Sha­mi stat­ing “her loy­al­ty was for sale” and “the Chi­nese gov­ern­ment was will­ing to pay her to do their bidding.”
• Evi­dence showed the New York non­prof­it asso­ci­a­tion was “close­ly asso­ci­at­ed with the Unit­ed Front Work Depart­ment,” and co-con­spir­a­tor CC‑1 was iden­ti­fied as the Chi­nese-born pres­i­dent of the New York asso­ci­a­tion of peo­ple from Henan province who trav­eled fre­quent­ly to Chi­na for UFWD events and main­tained con­tact with Bei­jing officials.
• Chi­na spends approx­i­mate­ly $10 bil­lion annu­al­ly on influ­ence oper­a­tions through the Unit­ed Front Work Depart­ment, tar­get­ing state and local gov­ern­ments, with Rep. John Moole­naar warn­ing the Des Moines, Iowa, may­or in August about a high school gospel choir invit­ed to Chi­na by a UFWD-linked “friend­ship association.”
• FBI Assis­tant Direc­tor Kevin Vorn­dran described the case as demon­strat­ing “brazen attempts of the [Peo­ple’s Repub­lic of Chi­na] to cor­rupt our polit­i­cal process­es,” with expert Ker­ry Ger­sha­neck stat­ing the Sun case “high­lights the insid­i­ous infil­tra­tion of Amer­i­ca at the sub-nation­al lev­el by Com­mu­nist Chi­na’s intel­li­gence and Unit­ed Front operatives.”

Chinese Influence Operations Target New York State Through Campaign Finance and Government Infiltration

Chi­nese influ­ence oper­a­tions in New York State rep­re­sent a mul­ti­fac­eted cam­paign tar­get­ing both state gov­ern­ment and local polit­i­cal fig­ures through cam­paign finance net­works, com­mu­ni­ty mobi­liza­tion, and covert gov­ern­ment infil­tra­tion. Fed­er­al pros­e­cu­tors in Brook­lyn have inves­ti­gat­ed two promi­nent fundrais­ers for May­or Eric Adams regard­ing poten­tial schemes to chan­nel Chi­nese gov­ern­ment influ­ence into his 2021 may­oral elec­tion, with FBI agents search­ing prop­er­ties linked to his Asian affairs advis­er and a Queens mall own­er whose venues host­ed fundrais­ers gen­er­at­ing irreg­u­lar dona­tion patterns.

The infil­tra­tion extends to Albany, where for­mer Deputy Chief of Staff Lin­da Sun faces fed­er­al charges for alleged­ly act­ing as an undis­closed Chi­nese gov­ern­ment agent while serv­ing under Gov­er­nors Cuo­mo and Hochul. Pros­e­cu­tors allege Sun blocked Tai­wanese gov­ern­ment rep­re­sen­ta­tives from access­ing state offi­cials, shaped gov­er­nors’ pub­lic state­ments on Chi­na-relat­ed issues, and facil­i­tat­ed unau­tho­rized entry of Chi­nese del­e­ga­tion members—receiving mil­lions in kick­backs that fund­ed lux­u­ry real estate and vehi­cles. Accord­ing to the indict­ment, Sun even ensured a Lunar New Year mes­sage omit­ted ref­er­ences to the deten­tion of Uyghur Mus­lims at the request of a Chi­nese offi­cial, demon­strat­ing how influ­ence oper­a­tions can shape polit­i­cal mes­sag­ing on human rights issues.

Beyond gov­ern­ment infil­tra­tion, CCP-linked Unit­ed Front actors exploit legit­i­mate com­mu­ni­ty con­cerns to advance Bei­jing’s broad­er influ­ence objec­tives. Com­mu­ni­ty orga­niz­ers with doc­u­ment­ed ties to the Unit­ed Front Work Depart­ment have mobi­lized Asian Amer­i­can protests on local issues like hous­ing and pub­lic safe­ty, strate­gi­cal­ly fram­ing their activ­i­ties using Amer­i­can polit­i­cal lan­guage while dis­guis­ing con­nec­tions to the Chi­nese gov­ern­ment. These oper­a­tions form part of a dra­mat­i­cal­ly expand­ed Chi­nese influ­ence appa­ra­tus in the Unit­ed States, with for­eign agent spend­ing sky­rock­et­ing from $10 mil­lion in 2016 to near­ly $64 mil­lion by 2020. The House Select Com­mit­tee on the Chi­nese Com­mu­nist Par­ty has char­ac­ter­ized such Unit­ed Front work as dam­ag­ing U.S. inter­ests through dias­po­ra sur­veil­lance, pro­mo­tion of favor­able PRC nar­ra­tives through seem­ing­ly inde­pen­dent voic­es, and neu­tral­iza­tion of CCP critics.

Exter­nal References:
• Chi­na’s Unit­ed Front Is Exploit­ing Asian Amer­i­can Wor­ries – For­eign Policy
• Ex-top aide to N.Y. Gov. Kathy Hochul was a secret Chi­nese agent, pros­e­cu­tors say – NBC News
• Win­nie Gre­co Steered Adams’ Rela­tions With Chi­na for Almost a Decade – THE CITY

Dis­claimer: The Glob­al Influ­ence Oper­a­tions Report (GIOR) uti­lizes AI through­out the post­ing process, includ­ing the gen­er­a­tion of sum­maries for news items, intro­duc­tions, key points, and, often, the “con­text” sec­tion. We rec­om­mend ver­i­fy­ing all infor­ma­tion before use. Addi­tion­al­ly, all images are gen­er­at­ed using AI and are intend­ed sole­ly for illus­tra­tive pur­pos­es. While they rep­re­sent the events or indi­vid­u­als dis­cussed, they should not be inter­pret­ed as real-world photography.

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