New Yorker Yan Xiong reveals what it’s like to be spied on by China in US

When Yan Xiong, a pastor and Iraqi war veteran, lost his bid for Congress in a Democratic primary earlier this year, he blamed one source: Chinese Communist Party police operating in New York City.
“I couldn’t raise any money,” Yan, 58, told The Post about his August race in Brooklyn. “I used my own money because they pressured everyone in the community to stay away from me to sink my campaign. And they succeeded.”
Unregistered Chinese agents working in New York City also allegedly tried to smear the father of seven by hiring a prostitute to ruin his political career and threatening to beat him so badly that he would have to bow out of the race, according to an indictment filed by the Department of Justice earlier this year.
Yan is just one alleged victim of “Operation Fox Hunt,” a Chinese government plot set up in 2014 to forcibly repatriate hundreds of thousands of Chinese nationals around the world, according to the Department of Justice and human rights groups.
“[China] has a history of targeting political dissidents and critics of the government who have sought relief and refuge in other countries,” US AG Merrick Garland said last week. Getty Images
“[China] has a history of targeting political dissidents and critics of the government who have sought relief and refuge in other countries,” US Attorney General Merrick Garland told reporters last week while announcing federal charges against 13 people accused of working for China in three “significant national security cases.”
The latest indictment followed a rash of recently unsealed federal cases, filed by the DOJ, which describe how Chinese operatives allegedly have used threats of kidnapping and physical violence to force nationals living in New York City to return to China and stand trial for alleged crimes against the country.
In one 2016 case, officials in China allegedly held hostage the pregnant daughter, identified as Victim-2 in court papers, of one of their New York targets for eight months until her mother’s “criminal case” was resolved. The mother, identified as Victim-1, was pressured to return to China to face an investigation of embezzlement at her property company, according to a federal indictment filed earlier this year against alleged Chinese agent Sun Hoi Ying.
Unregistered Chinese agents working in NYC allegedly tried to smear Yan by hiring a prostitute to ruin his political career and threatening to beat him, according to an indictment filed by the Department of Justice earlier this year. Stephen Yang
In Yan’s case, a Chinese operative named Qiming Lin worked with a local private investigator to try and create a scandal to derail his campaign in the Democratic primary for New York’s 10th District, the DOJ’s indictment says. Lin specified that the scandal could include “unreported, unpaid taxes or extramarital affairs … sexual harassment,” according to court papers.
The indictments also reveal how Chinese operatives have hired private investigators and even New York City cops to dig up information on their targets and threaten them.
In a conversation recorded by federal agents between Lin and the unidentified private investigator, Lin was heard saying, “‘But in the end, violence would be fine too. Huh? Beat him [chuckles], beat him until he cannot run for election,’” court papers say. “‘Heh,
that’s the-the last resort. You … think about it. Car accident, [he] will be completely wrecked [chuckles], right? Don’t know, eh, whatever ways from all different angles. Or, on the day of the election, he cannot make it there himself, right?’”
A former student leader of pro-democracy activists during the Tiananmen Square protests in Beijing in April 1989, Yan received asylum in the US in 1992.
In the February indictment filed by the DOJ against alleged Chinese government agent Sun, federal agents describe how he allegedly worked “in coordination with a co-conspirator … who is a local US law enforcement officer (CC-2) and Sun threatened and pressured Victim-3 during those meetings.” The document added that Sun allegedly worked with the local law enforcement officer to meet Victim-3 — an unnamed businesswoman — at a Queens restaurant to pressure her to enter into “settlement negotiations” with the Chinese government. If she refused, Chinese officials threatened to sue her in the US and release information about her to the IRS, the indictment says.
The Chinese government “detained Victim-3’s first ex-husband and multiple members of [her] family” in China and even obtained a warrant for her arrest through Interpol, the international policing organization.
After receiving asylum, served as a US Marine in the Iraqi war in 2004-2005.
Like many of the Chinese government targets around the world, Yan, 58, is a wanted man in his home country. A former student leader of pro-democracy activists who stood up to tanks during Tiananmen Square protests in Beijing in April 1989, he received asylum in the US as a political dissident in 1992 and served as a Marine in the Iraqi war in 2004-2005. Nonetheless, the Chinese government still considers him a fugitive. Yan said he has long been a target of Chinese government operatives working from police stations set up in Manhattan’s Chinatown.
The Post recently revealed one of those police stations operating above a noodle shop on East Broadway. The space is owned by the America ChangLe Association —a non-profit that occupies the third floor of 107 East Broadway — which recently held a gala dinner at a Flushing, Queens, restaurant where New York City Mayor Eric Adams was the guest of honor. It is unclear if the Association is directly involved with the activities of the police station.
The Post has reached out to the America ChangLe Association for comment.
The Manhattan station is part of a web of more than 100 such law enforcement offices set up around the world by the People’s Republic of China, ostensibly to help Chinese nationals renew their Chinese-government-issued identification and drivers’ licenses.
The Post recently revealed a Chinese police station operating above a noodle shop on East Broadway in Manhattan’s Chinatown. William Farrington
“Openly labeled as overseas police service stations … they contribute to ‘resolutely cracking down on all kinds of illegal and criminal activities involving overseas Chinese,’” according to a September report by Safeguard Defenders, a Madrid-based human rights group that documents Chinese repression around the world.
The stations also participate in “intimidation, harassment, detention or imprisonment” to spy on dissenters and return migrants, according to the report
“The Chinese police have occupied New York City,” Yan told The Post. “Every corner of New York City. As a student leader in Tiananmen Square we fought for freedom and defended American democracy only to find that the Chinese Communist Party has now come to America.”
Yan alleges that he couldn’t raise any money in a Congressional primary race in August because of Chinese government interference.
Yan claimed that the Chinese Communist Party has infiltrated many community organizations and that operatives are using local politicians, including the mayor’s office, to reach their targets. “Adams is getting millions… from the Chinese government,” said Yan.
A spokesman for Adams did not immediately return an email seeking comment Tuesday.
Yan told The Post that he has tried to put the incident behind him as he and his wife expect their eighth child in December, and prepare to leave the city and move upstate.
“I’m scared about myself,” he told The Post. “But I am more worried for my nation and my city if we do nothing about the Chinese police.”