All Roads Lead to China
Timmerman, Kenneth R.
John Huang was a main cog in a White House-DNC directed machine involving such men as Ira Magaziner and the mysterious Dr. Wang. I / I i 6 i 11141 . 111 iii' it irsonsok iipilamisomi he story...
...An October 4, 1994 memo from then–Undersecretary of Commerce Jeffrey Garten was leaked to the Washington Post on January 25,1997...
...Frequently, those records show, Huang went straight to the White House to plead his case...
...Follow-up memos from the Council tasking the Commerce Department to examine lifting trade restrictions on China were directed to —you guessed it—John Huang...
...China became interested and more and more receptive...and that got them started...
...Now he was one of the top U.S...
...joined Chemical Bank and a PLA company, China Aerospace International Holdings, in establishing a $loo million investment fund to finance new businesses in Shanghai...
...His Little Rock firm, Daihatsu International Trading, represents thirty companies from the U.S., China, and Hong Kong...
...The network of connections boggles the mind, so let's recap to keep things straight: John Huang is the former American president of the Lippo Group headed by Mochtar Riady...
...The strategic situation was finally stood on its head in December 1996 when Russia agreed to a huge $810 billion arms sale to China that would dramatically improve the ability of the Chinese to challenge the U.S...
...companies doing business in China in the 1970's and 1980's, he became an important ally for the Chinese during the Clinton administration, because of his top level access and his advocacy of technology transfer to China...
...Last year, after solicitations from the DNC, the Wangs contributed $5,000 to the North Carolina Victory Fund, and another $3,000 to Harvey Gantt, the Democratic challenger to Senator Jesse Helms...
...Such access could of course be extremely valuable to Lippo: Mochtar Riady plans to invest $10 billion in mainland China over the next decade through the conduit of his Hong Kong—based Lippo Ltd...
...Riady, however, was not one to leave anything to chance...
...Why was Huang so keen to get Shen's China Resources (Holdings) into the action...
...We had a tough time getting it approved by COCOM," the multilateral export control forum based in Paris, "because at that time China was put in the same basket with the Soviet Union and a lot of restrictions applied...
...Corporate Chairman Wang Meiyue told the South China Morning Post on Jan...
...Magaziner has refused to respond to more than a half-dozen inquiries from TAS about the matter, but already the administration is starting to change its story...
...Clinton's The American Spectator • March 1997 then–Secretary of the Commerce, Ron Brown, would come under investigation for allegedly accepting a $700,000 payment from the Vietnamese government in exchange for helping to lift the ban...
...While at DARPA, Dr...
...Sheryl M. Henderson contributed research for this article...
...Well, one month after the inaugural, Huang wrote Clinton to arrange a meeting with Mochtar Riady himself...
...They sit on the same boards together through the Hong Kong Chinese Bank...
...Recall that Huang arranged a meeting between Riady and Clinton just one month after Clinton's inaugural...
...Lifting the Tiananmen sanctions was Ira's secret proposal...
...Wang says...
...intelligence after he had left the government seems staggeringly important in view of these other details...
...In fact, they show that Huang was often the Commerce Department's most important person on China...
...Wang says his contract with McDonnell Douglas expired in 1990, and he has stopped actively representing U.S...
...According to Henry Sokolski, a deputy assistant secretary of defense during the Bush administration, GPS technologies are highly sought after in countries such as China "as a cheap, reliable guidance system for cruise missiles...
...The Chinese could easily have gained access to Lippo bank computers, and through them to the entire U.S...
...We've taken the long-term view...
...What possible legitimate reason could there be for Huang to see them...
...To entice the Americans, the Poly official said that the Chinese government "had full knowledge of this deal" and even that it was "assisting in the paperwork...
...Al Gore in 1992...
...In retrospect this was a stunning a development: Huang was still five months away from taking his job in Brown's Commerce Department...
...On April 27, 1993 in Los Angeles, Secrequested retary Brown appeared at a meeting of that Huang be Asian-American business leaders...
...One thing is certain: Commerce department records reveal an utterly different picture than the one being painted by Clinton administration spokesmen...
...Indeed, in January 1993 John Huang and Mochtar Riady's son James contributed $loo,000 to Clinton's inaugural fund...
...Huang's highly unusual—in fact, unprecedented —access to top secret U.S...
...high technology to Communist China...
...Perhaps the memo is spurious—an after-the-fact attempt to cover up Huang's more important role in U.S...
...WAS ACCESS TO CLINTON FOR SALE...
...We don't know what he told Lippo during these conversations," says one congressional investigator...
...A Commerce Department spokesperson, who at first denied any knowledge of Huang's involvement, now admits that Huang "went to one of those meetings...
...intelligence of being an intelligence front itself: for the Chinese...
...Riady never could have taken such a relaxed attitude toward such highly political investments if he hadn't been counseled by John Huang...
...Wang gave $47,500 to the Democrats in 1996, and $54,800 in 1995—more than twice the legal cap on total yearly contributions by individuals...
...When I suggested to Dr...
...The larger question is: why is Trie such a close friend of President Clinton...
...It took several weeks before a DNC representative knocked on their door to accept his offer...
...The ques- tion on the floor came from none other than John Huang even Huang...
...But a stable U.S.-China relationship is absolutely essential if Riady's ventures are to succeed...
...It comes as no surprise that Magaziner wants to keep the deal under wraps: despite Clinton's warm embrace of China, Peking continues to defy Washington by selling ballistic missiles and sensitive nuclear technology to the likes of Pakistan and Iran...
...Wang retired from the Pentagon and went into business — trying to sell U.S...
...Wang and his wife sent the DNC personal checks for another $210,035...
...I / I i 6 i 11141 . 111 iii' it irsonsok iipilamisomi he story that follows is one of the more astonishing tales of shady dealing and possible corruption that has emerged from an administration already no stranger to scandal...
...When "low-level bureaucrats" at the Department of Defense would oppose a particular sale, Wang said the Council discussed "what kind of legislation should be proposed" to Congress in order to weaken the Pentagon's hand...
...visa and a White House pass...
...the Chinese had just purchased ten airliners from Boeing...
...law to import prison-labor goods, the Chinese need front companies like SKY to move the merchandise through Customs...
...If any of these organizations were making contributions to the DNC, then in effect the Democratic Party—and the White House—was being funded, at least in part, by the Communist government of Peking...
...Court documents reveal that Poly had hoped to expand their business even further: they were planning to move beyond assault rifles to Chinese-made hand grenades, mortars, RPG-7 anti-tank rockets, and hand-held anti-aircraft missiles (Chinese copies of the Stinger), capable of knocking commercial airliners out of the sky...
...Huang's office calendar, in fact, shows that he had scheduled thirty-seven such briefings from John Dickerson of the Commerce Department's Office One thing is certain: Commerce records about Huang's central role on China policy paint a totally different picture than the one being spun by the White House...
...Bill Clinton has often painted Trie as a charming, inconsequential figure —the proprietor of the president's favorite Chinese restaurant...
...Even stranger is that standard security procedures were ignored for Huang, who was born in mainland China...
...Thailand Business Council...
...In July 1993, only two months after Ron Brown gave Huang his public reassurance about renewing MFN trading status with China, Riady broke ground on a huge construction project in Fujian province known as Tati City, a light-industry zone strategically located just across from Taiwan on the Zhongmen Peninsula, at the center of the booming Shanghai-TaiwanHong Kong economic triangle...
...It's finding it even more difficult to explain why Wang met with Ron Brown at the Commerce Department before heading over to the White House...
...In 1966, he was appointed Director of the Office of Advanced Engineering at the Defense Advanced Research Development Agency (DARPA), the very heart of the Pentagon's "black" high-technology network, where super-secret programs were known only by exotic code-names such as"Chalk-Banyon," "Link Cypress," or "Tacit Rainbow...
...We know, too, that Huang had an unprecedented amount of access to top secret classified intelligence —long after he had left the government himself...
...banking system," one congressional staffer said...
...This officer," writes Efftimiades, "coordinates the collection activities of other intelligence personnel operating under Hua Ren cover...
...It is a tale rich in intrigue—indeed, the story is so murky in places that the several congressional committees investigating its ins and outs are at a loss to piece the various elements together...
...And his political clout (which the Chinese see as "face") rose phenomenally in 1994 when he was appointed to the President's Export Council...
...Riady had made it clear what he wanted from U.S.-Asia policy, and recall also that Huang had once been Riady's American representative...
...Did Huang continue to campaign for a lifting of those restrictions after he left Commerce in December 1995 to take a post as a fundraiser for the Democratic National Committee...
...The external evidence suggests that SKY would be the kind of company to perform the tasks the Chinese government needs...
...moreover his top secret clearance was extended for more than a year after he left the United States government...
...Wang, Charlie Trie, or John Huang have surfaced, although investigators from at least seven congressional committees are probing possible connections...
...Lippo's former president of U.S...
...After his first $1oo,000 check, delivered in December 1992, Dr...
...intelligence with China or some other entity...
...Such corporations, known as "red chips," are common in Hong Kong...
...On January 27, 1995, Huang then took another extraordinary and incomprehensible step: he wrote his boss at Commerce, Deputy Undersecretary David Rothkopf, asking Rothkopf to shelve a memo Huang himself had written concerning U.S.-Taiwan trade...
...naval presence in the Pacific...
...During the 1992 presidential campaign, he says that he and his wife sent off a check for $2,000 to the Clintons, and then wrote the DNC offering to contribute an additional $loo,000...
...Wang says...
...They said, 'Yes.' So McDonnell Douglas wrote a proposal saying the U.S...
...Sometimes we'd get action out of certain congressmen, and sometimes we'd get ignored...
...TAS has learned that Magaziner took his effort as far afield as Thailand, where in January 1996 he conducted focus groups with Thai business executives—including big DNC contributors—according to a newly released document from the U.S...
...In a March 9, 1993 letter to the president marked "Personal & Confidential," Riady spelled out his specific business concerns: he wanted Clinton to lift the U.S...
...Enter companies like Charlie Trie's SKY Trading...
...They also want to know if Huang served as a conduit for illegal contributions to the DNC from his Chinese connections—specifically the Chinese government...
...Wang that such generosity put him in the big leagues with corporate contributors such as McDonnell Douglas (which contributed $154,9oo to the Democrats in the 19951996 cycle—compared to the $159,015 contributed by the Wangs), the genial "retiree" just chuckled, "Yes, I guess so...
...Official Commerce records show that, throughout his 18-month stint as Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of Commerce for International Economic Policy, Huang relentlessly pressed for a lifting of trade restrictions—not only with China, but also with Indonesia and Vietnam...
...Department...
...market penetration in China by a selective lifting of the Tiananmen sanctions...
...Huang was the DNC's ace fundraiser who paved the way for Wang to meet with Bill Clinton in the White House...
...Wang says he was offered a selection of full-time government jobs, which he declined...
...relations with China...
...On one level the story concerns a White House unconcerned with where and how it gets its money...
...The Wang-Clinton meeting occurred at one of the fundraisers which the White House is finding increasingly difficult to explain...
...For many years, I was the most successful American doing business in China...
...John Huang's role in the Tiananmen sanction debate has never been elucidated until now...
...Eventually we signed a contract to co-produce aircraft in Shanghai in 1985— eleven years after I began telling China about McDonnell Douglas...
...The largest of these is CITIC, the $21 billion holding company run by Poly Technologies boss Wang Jun...
...More curious yet is that his clearance was extended for more than a year after Huang left the Commerce Department...
...That's one question Congressional Republicans are now investigating...
...For John Huang—and Bill Clinton—it had been an enormous turn of events...
...The Clinton administration has attempted to portray Huang as an insignificant political flunky, far removed from the real business of policy-making...
...Joseph Biden...
...In a separate project on nearby Meizhou Island, he began work on a $1.9 billion tourism complex that will include a deep water port...
...On another level it is a tale of high-level officials in the Clinton administration operating to change national policy toward Communist China—with the seductive jangle of money to be heard not far off in the distance...
...Aegis class destroyers, front line defenders of a U.S...
...Riady also wrote in the letter that expanding trade with China was "the best way of achieving political reform" there...
...Since my retirement in 1990 we have had money, and so we contributed...
...In plain English: Clinton's old friend (and trusted fundraiser) John Huang had been the American president of a company whose business partners were importing assault weapons for sale on the streets of the United States...
...Soon he had another special request for a meeting—this time between Ron Brown and "a very He got it good Chinese businessman, Mr...
...30 Ira Magaziner's "secret proposal" — that's what one former senior Commerce Department official calls a plan to reverse U.S...
...He settled instead for a seat on the President's Export Council, a prestigious 25-member panel of financial heavy weights and top political contributors, many of whom were doing extensive business in China...
...But we do know that he had access to Top Secret classified information of tremendous commercial value to Lippo, and to their business ventures in China, Indonesia, and Vietnam...
...He described Hua Ren Jituan's involvement with the Hong Kong Chinese Bank as bearing the hallThe American Spectator • March 19 97 marks of "a textbook Communist Chinese influence operation...
...Yet Huang had another salary, because he had another job: he was now a full-time fundraiser for the DNC...
...It was U.S...
...After taking a Ph.D...
...DID CHINA HAVE A SPY IN OUR GOVERNMENT...
...carrier task force...
...policy in the 198o's to develop our strategic relationship with China, as a counter-weight to the Soviet Union," Bryen recalls...
...Wang's first clients was McDonnell Douglas, who asked him to represent them in 1974 to sell passenger aircraft...
...The couple donated another $5,750 to the Clinton/Gore campaign...
...In the meantime, as the Clinton administration knew, Huang had been arranging White House access for the likes of Shen Jueren, whose company was thought to be a Chinese intelligence front...
...35 "The Chinese could easily have gained access to Lippo bank computers, and through them the entire U.S...
...high-technology sales to China...
...It's a cozy way of gaining access to Western capital markets," says one Congressional staffer...
...and on October 18, 1994, Huang was granted a permanent top secret security clearance...
...They are looking at the People's Liberation Army (PLA), as well as its leading commercial and arms-trading fronts—Chinese International Trust and Investment Corporation (CITIC), Continental Mariner Investment Co., Ltd., China Resources (Holding) Ltd., and Poly Technologies...
...to China are handicapped by the bureaucracy of the United States government," Wang told TAS...
...But already there is sufficient evidence to suggest that, one day in the future, John Huang may become one of the best-known names to emerge from Bill Clinton's rocky tenure in the Oval Office...
...His $3.6 billion Hong Kong company has been pumping money into property, finance, and infrastructure projects in mainland China, all of which have experienced tremendous growth rates over the past two years...
...Through Hong Kong China bank, Lippo is building an entire city in Putian, China (Fujian province), complete with offices, apartment complexes, shops, schools, and the infrastructure needed to support them...
...Michael H. Jordan (Westinghouse Electric), and John F. McDonnell (McDonnell-Douglas Corp...
...On February 6, 1996, Clinton met with Wang Jun, chairman of the Poly Technologies group, the Chinese army's top arms exporting front company...
...doubtless there are some aspects of this curious tale that will never go beyond secret inquiries of the FBI and Congress...
...In 1994, they contributed $1o,000 to embattled Virginia Senator Chuck Robb...
...This is not your fault or mine, but the luck of the draw...
...One of their main demands, the document states, was that the U.S...
...38 deployed carriers in the Taiwan Straits last March to deter a Chinese attack on the island, and let it be known that their purchases from Russia were aimed at intimidating the U.S...
...Was it supposed to provide access...
...ANOTHER BUSINESSMAN WITH CONNECTIONS John Huang and Charlie Trie, as it turns out, were neither the only nor the first Asian-Americans with extensive business ties in China who were major DNC donors...
...he was never given a full security examination, and had lied on his official papers...
...The arrangements for Wang's visit were made by another Clinton crony now making news, Charlie Yan Lie Trie...
...is willing to help China develop passenThe American Spectator • March 1997 37 ger airplanes...
...If Washington decides to penalize China for unfair trading practices, or to impose punitive sanctions because of Chinese proliferation activities, Lippo investments could take a nose-dive as investors re-evaluate the risks of doing business with China...
...Like so many of Clinton's staggering deceptions, John Huang had been the American president of a company whose business partners were importing assault weapons for sale on the streets of the United States...
...Huang served in the Taiwanese Air Force, and was the president of an Indonesian Bank with extensive business interests in China and Vietnam...
...It is a story worth following into its most astonishing reaches...
...We know that Huang's connections to various entities connected to the People's Republic of China are so numerous as to invite the scrutiny of both congressional committees and the FBI, who have already determined that Huang lied about even as inconsequential a matter as his true birthdate...
...In October 1994, along with a Chinese developer as partner, Trie founded San Kin Yip International Trading (SKY...
...Wang's appearance at either place should have raised eyebrows at the very least...
...Not long before, Huang had been an "outsider" who had given $1oo,000 to Clinton's inaugural committee...
...has given nearly $400,000 to the DNC...
...Commerce Department spokesmen have yet to explain this intriguing anomaly...
...David Harris, former Chief of Strategic Planning in Canada's Security Intelligence Service, spent many years tracking Chinese intelligence infiltration of North American businesses and institutions, and Communist Chinese industrial and economic espionage...
...Regardless, we need to take a low key approach with Taiwan at least before spring over [sic...
...On yet another level the story suggests the possibility of corruption so extensive that the FBI, along with seven congressional oversight committees, have stepped in to investigate...
...The first of those Poly Technologies weapons left for the United States just days before Clinton met at the White House with Wang Jun, the company's president...
...BEFRIENDING AN INTELLIGENCE FRONT It is also known as a front for intelligence activities...
...Rarely did they admit anyone...
...Says Riady of his massive Chinese investments, "You can't make money overnight...
...In a most unusual match-up of goods and services, SKY imports Chinese textiles and exports American machine-tools and advanced technology...
...It is inconceivable that the White House did not know about Wang's connection to such shady operations...
...In one such project, launched in July 1995, Lippo Ltd...
...A prominent member of China's legendarily corrupt taizi faction, Wang has brokered, through his various enterprises, some of China's largest foreign arms sales...
...Within weeks, the Clinton administration began to act on Riady's "sugRon Brown gestion...
...at Johns Hopkins, he worked for a series of defense companies, including the Aero-Space Corporation in California, a non-profit corporation spun-off by the government to develop spy satellites for the National Security Agency...
...Wang's relationship with the Chinese, and his offers of U.S...
...How could so shady a character have been granted both a U.S...
...Wang had been a major asset for U.S...
...operations is none other than John Huang...
...Why would a company be trading both hi-tech hardware and low-tech rugs and clothing...
...The bank had been controlled by Lippo at the time of Clinton's inaugural...
...I would be surprised if China's mostmonths before favored nation status is not renewed...
...This included a week-long stint (October 23-28) that came well after the alleged Garten memo claimed Huang was not "up to handling Asia in any way shape or form...
...After decades of hying to contain their Chinese rivals, now Russia was agreeing to equip the Chinese navy with arguably the best surface combatants in their inventory—Sovremenny-class destroyers, equipped with SS-N-22 cruise missiles—which had been designed specifically to counter U.S...
...Moreover, records turned over by the Commerce Department show that Huang had even lied about his date of birth, listing it variously as 1941 and 1945...
...Might Huang have been sharing sensitive U.S...
...John Huang was acting assistant secretary that day, making him the second highest ranking official at a meeting whose purpose, participants say, was to examine "how to expand U.S...
...IMPORTING ASSAULT WEAPONS FOR GANGS Clinton's China connection didn't become public knowledge until six weeks after the November election, when the Washington Post reported that Clinton had met with a top arms dealer from the Communist Chinese government at the White House...
...Writing to Huang's immediate superior, Charles F. Meissner, Garten stated, "I can tell you one thing: Neither John Huang nor [deleted] are up to handling Asia in any way shape or form at this time...
...TAS has also learned that Huang stepped into his boss's shoes 18 times in 1995, for a total of 1o5 days — nearly half the working year, in fact...
...We have so much planned with China during this period of time...
...As Acting Assistant Secretary, Huang represented Commerce at frequent interagency meetings on U.S.-Asia trade, such as those held by Ira Magaziner's task force to repeal the Tiananmen sanctions...
...The question is, can a person in that situation just leave the government and do business in China...
...On at least three occasions—March 22, May 12, and September 19, 1995—Huang called Mochtar Riady's Lippo Group immediately after the briefing...
...intelligence was aware that another Chinese government official had recommended the arms smugglers set up a special bank account for their transactions...
...A source who attended meetings with Magaziner in December tells The American Spectator that plans for the repeal have already been drawn up by an administration task force headed by Magaziner...
...We wanted to tie down the Soviets along the Chinese border, to reduce the pressure on Western Europe...
...But those various elements are fascinating and frightening...
...As it happens, the Chinese military operates dozens of prison-labor textile mills —and because it is against U.S...
...The appointment to the President's Export Council followed soon thereafter, as did additional contributions...
...Council members openly shared their dissatisfaction over national security export controls...
...want to abolish), China cannot purchase much sensitive technology directly—and thus needs American agents to broker the deals...
...Along with his son Stephen, who handles the China accounts, Riady has also been doing hundreds of millions of dollars of business directly with the Chinese military, and stood to lose much of this overnight if the United States enforced its tough non-proliferation laws, some of which were drafted by then-Sen...
...I suppose my appointment to the Export Council may have increased my prestige somewhat," Dr...
...Likewise, because of the Tiananmen sanctions (that Magaziner and Co...
...at the Just a few months later, Huang was appointed Commerce a trustee of the Democratic National Committee...
...But it is now clear that Dr...
...I was one of the fortunate ones able to do business in China...
...With the end of the Cold War, the United States maintained its strategic engagement with China, while the Chinese drifted away...
...In China, however, the bank has a different name—Hua Ren Jituan —and a different image: it is, in fact, owned by China's Ministry of Foreign Trade and Economic Cooperation...
...play down the issues of human rights and regional security threats, particularly with reference to China...
...Surely no one could accuse the Clinton began working administration of dragging its heels...
...In what seems to be a pattern of Clinton administration unconcern for such matters, however, just the opposite happened: Brown requested that Huang be given an interim top-secret security clearance—and it was granted...
...Stephen D. Bryen, a Washington-based security expert, remembers Dr...
...Wang left China shortly before the Communist Revolution in 1949 and came to the United States...
...In Huang's office calendar, the September 13, 1995 meeting was identified as a "Trade Initiatives Project...
...KENNETH R. TIMMERMAN writes frequently on security issues for The American Spectator...
...Bit by bit, the Chinese began to challenge us—selling missiles to Pakistan and Iran, increasing tensions over Taiwan and Hong Kong—while their relations with Russia steadily improved...
...Those weapons were to be sold to Los Angeles street gangs...
...Shen is the chairman of China Resources (Holdings) Co., Ltd...
...John Huang, as it turns out, has connections to other suspected Chinese intelligence organizations—connections so staggering, and so alarming, that on January 27, 1997, FBI Director Louis Freeh put in motion a 25-man FBI task force to probe Huang's activities...
...That company was China Resources (Holdings) Company Ltd., whose chairman was Shen Jueren — the "nice" Chinese businessman whom Huang was fixing up with then—Commerce Secretary Ron Brown...
...government officials overseeing American trade policy with Communist China...
...According to Chinese Intelligence Operations by Defense Intelligence Agency analyst Nicholas Efftimiades, the most comprehensive manual available to the public on the subject, Hua Ren Jituan traditionally has a vice president who is a military case officer operating under commercial cover...
...The group, formerly known as Conic Investment of Hong Kong, was bought out by state-owned China Aerospace Corp...
...Details of Riady's investments appear regularly in the Hong Kong press...
...Lawrence Ellison (Oracle Systems Corp...
...Wang was advocating loosening the Tiananmen Square sanctions at a critical time for the Chinese, and that he was able to present his views to the very U.S...
...In fact, TAS has learned, Huang was also in attendance at some of the task-force meetings...
...A former superior of Huang's called the extension of his security clearance "bewildering...
...The outlines of the story suggest something grave, indeed: a possible high-level infiltration of the Clinton administration by the People's Republic of China...
...Huang had been born there...
...As it happens, Huang's former boss at Lippo, Mochtar Riady, has multibillion-dollar investments in all three nations...
...But the McDonnell Douglas sale soon became the test case for the China "green line," a special set of rules that allowed higher levels of technology to be sold to China than to other Communist countries...
...That strategy included the redeployment to China of strategic listening posts from Iran following the fall of the Shah of Iran in 1979, so the U.S...
...A repeal of those sanctions would make possible nuclear trade with, export financing for, and possibly even arms sales to Peking...
...As one congressional staffer who has been tracking China Resources points out, Lippo boss Mochtar Riady "has a symbiotic relationship with the Chinese government...
...In response to atopa question from the floor, Brown said, "I tend to granted agree that the best way to apply pressures for a secret security more liberal policy in China would be through clearance five open trade...
...He surely was being kept up to speed: when Huang finally came on board at Commerce on July 18, 1994, he was fully briefed and held his first meeting on China trade issues the very next day...
...Clinton readily agreed...
...Commerce Secretary Ron Brown frequently attended Council meetings, as did his top export licensing aides, Undersecretary William Reinsch and Assistant Secretary for export enforcement John Despres...
...WHAT WE KNOW SO FAR So far, no direct links between the Chinese government and the campaign contributions of Chinese-Americans such as Dr...
...We are quite sensitive to the current events going on with China now," Huang wrote...
...For the moment much of the rest remains unknown...
...There is more than Huang's relationship with Shen to point to this conclusion...
...The recommended bank, which intelligence believed to be another front—this time for espionage—was a joint venture between the Chinese government and the Lippo Group...
...We referred to the task force as Ira Magaziner's project," a former senior Commerce official said...
...Anything we need to do to delay program with Taiwan, we should do it (to protect what we have accomplished so far with China...
...policy toward China and repeal a series of restrictions on trade...
...Harris believes that Huang's relationship with Lippo, and Lippo's involvement with its state-owned Chinese partner, could have provided the Chinese intelligence services with "massive access to information on economic and marketing strategies and trade information...
...But those same people were donating money to the DNC —and to Bill Clinton himself...
...After initially denying even the existence of Magaziner's China task force, calling it "an ad hoc group that did not have an official Commerce Department representative," Commerce now acknowledges that Magaziner convened a China trade policy meeting at the Commerce Department, chaired by David Rothkopf (to whom John Huang reported), that took place "some time in September or October 1995...
...What investors really fear, of course, is the threat of war...
...The Chinese turned to Russia in anger after the U.S...
...Members of the panel, which met at least twice with President Clinton, included CEOs such as C. Michael Armstrong (Hughes Aircraft Company), John F. Carlson (Cray Research, 36 Inc...
...trade embargo on Vietnam, where Lippo had extensive commercial interests...
...TAS researcher Sheryl Henderson has discovered that, since 1992, Chiao Jen Wang, president and chairman of the International Corporation of America, Inc...
...Wang's largesse to the Democrats since 1992 has amounted to a whopping $387,015...
...companies and the Chinese government, and that China's MFN status was a frequent topic of discussion at the President's Export Council...
...The Commerce Department now acknowledges that Huang saw "15 classified field reports" and "12 finished intelligence reports," but refuses to say which reports those might have been...
...But then, he says, he tried a new approach: "Is China interested in technology— in learning how to build airplanes...
...In addition, the couple distributed $76,380 to the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee and to various state campaigns, confirming revelations that first appeared in the Washington Post on January 26 that the DNC had sought to funnel contributions from big donors to embattled state campaigns, knowing that state contributions were much more difficult to trace...
...from future deployments...
...33 Commerce says that Huang needed the clearance because he was to stay on the government payroll as an outside trade consultant, at a salary of $9,957.60 per month...
...From strategic ally during the Cold War we have come full circle to become potential rivals, even adversaries...
...At first, Wang says, his efforts were ill-received...
...Why was Huang suddenly so concerned that his previous attitude about China had to be reversed...
...companies in China because of his age "and because of the change of nature in China's market...
...One of the American arms dealers negotiating with Poly turned out to be an undercover U.S...
...All you have to do is go through the [debriefing] procedure...
...Within six months of Clinton's inaugural they had become 50-5o partners with Lippo in their holdings in Hong Kong Chinese Bank...
...Despite the return of $1,000 of that amount, the Wangs' generosity way exceeded the limits on personal campaign contributions—as did their contributions to the DNC...
...Long before Clinton even came to Washington, in fact, Trie was a formidable businessman with solid international connections...
...Then in 1972, Dr...
...Now John Huang, Bill Clinton's friend and fundraiser, is under investigation for his potential role in what Solomon called, in a letter to FBI director Freeh, "at a minimum, economic espionage against the United States by a foreign corporation having direct ties to the People's Republic of China...
...I wanted to see them win...
...in May1993 to create a back-door listing to the Hong Kong stock exchange...
...Since late 1992, his International Corporation of America and its trading subsidiary, ICA Export Co., have contributed $94,550 to the DNC, according to Federal Election Commission records, while Dr...
...I had all kinds of clearances, including a top secret clearance," Dr...
...China Aerospace International Holdings is ultimately controlled by China's Ministry of Aerospace Industry, which oversees production of missiles, tanks, and fighter-aircraft...
...There may not be a smoking gun here—but congressional investigators are catching more than a whiff of gunpowder...
...Yet the overseas security investigation that was required for government employees with foreign backgrounds was waived...
...Indeed, U.S...
...As president [Nixon] announced, it's national policy to develop relations with China,' they explained to me...After that, I was approved from a security point of view...
...With timely intelligence from John Huang, Riady would be in a better position to protect his investments...
...Perhaps they can grow into it next year...
...CONGRESS INVESTIGATES Outgoing Commerce Secretary Mickey Kantor has already confirmed (in a January 13, 1997 reply to questions from Solomon) that Huang received "a weekly intelligence briefing centered on the People's Republic of China" while serving at the Commerce Department...
...within weeks a Chinese government investment company began buying in as well...
...From the start, one of the administration's most forceful advocates for eliminating the Tiananmen sanctions—which concern the issues of human rights and national security—was Huang, the former Lippo Bank official and longtime friend of Bill who was appointed to a senior Commerce Department job in 1994...
...banking system" because of Lippo's relationship to the Worthen Bank in Arkansas and to First Union, one of the largest banks in the American Southeast...
...15, 1996 that the company was seeking to import global positioning satellite systems (GPS) for the Chinese police as well as large-capacity digital telephone switching systems...
...officials who were in charge of administering the Commerce Department's Bureau of Export Administration...
...A Chinese invasion of Taiwan, which top PRC military leaders have alluded to in public over the past eighteen months, would throw blankets of doom over investor enthusiasm throughout the Pacific rim...
...One of Dr...
...34 March 1997 • The American Spectator of Intelligence Liaison during his tenure...
...But a TAS review of Huang's appointment books and other Commerce Department records shows that he regularly attended weekly "task force" meetings on Asian trade, and between March and October 1995 attended five interagency policy meetings devoted to China and related issues at the Old Executive Office Building, where Magaziner had set up shop...
...March 1997 • The American Spectator...
...Congressional investigators are now frying to determine what the connection might be, if any, between Trie and the Chinese government...
...This shocking revelation became even clearer this past June, when a representative of Poly Technologies was indicted in California for his role in importing 2,000 AK-47's into the States...
...The investigation was prompted by House Rules Committee chairman Gerald Solomon, whose own investigations have produced many of the documents that have emerged so far about Huang's murky connections to the PRC...
...Shen Jueren...
...In all, their largesse to the Democrats since Clinton's election in 1992 has amounted to a whopping $387,015...
...That investigation was never completed, because of Brown's death in an airplane crash...
...technology, "clearly fit in with our larger strategy of developing closer ties to Beijing...
...Indeed the House International Relations Committee and the House Rules Committee are now looking into another of Huang's murky connections—to Hong Kong Chinese Bank, Ltd., where Huang served as a vice president from March 1985 to September 1986...
...A Hong Kong China subsidiary runs a 24-kilometer toll road in Gaoyao City, Guangdong...
...Customs agent...
...Wang's earlier efforts very well, since during the Reagan administration he was the top Pentagon official in charge of reviewing the McDonnell Douglas case...
...Born in Shanghai in 1918, Dr...
...Most of the [Council] members...feel that exports from the U.S...
...They also gave to the successful re-election campaigns of Democratic senators Rockefeller, Feinstein, Max Baucus, and March 1997 • The American Spectator Dr...
...Wang had access to highly classified technology used to track Soviet missile sites and nuclear weapons...
...By his account, he played a central role—if not the central role—in initiating U.S...
...But because of my background, the Chinese already knew me very well...
...I am a lifelong supporter of the Democrats," says Dr...
...32 March 1997 • The American Spectator the story of Trie beggars belief...
...So I went to see my superior and the security people and they said, 'Sure, no problem...
...The American Spectator has obtained "Delegation of authority" memoranda that show Huang stepped in as Acting Assistant Secretary of Commerce no fewer than nine times in 1994, for a total of 37 working days...
...Magaziner, the Clinton adviser who was at the center of the administration's failed health-care reform effort, has now set his sights on lifting what are known as the Tiananmen Square sanctions—trade restrictions enacted after China's brutal slaughter of pro-democracy students in 1989...
...In the old days, China's door was essentially closed," Wang says...
...could detect Soviet missile launches...
...Even these surface details suggest serious irregularities in the Clinton administration's dealings with Communist China...
...If Dr...
...Even Clinton has admitted that his association with people linked to illegal arms profiteering was "clearly inappropriate...
...This suspected link meant that Huang, by virtue of his connection to Shen alone, ought to have been barred from any significant access to the White House...
...Lippo was a co-owner of the bank through which Wang Jun's firm, Poly Technologies, planned to funnel profits from arms smuggling...
...And yet, this is precisely when his political contributions began...
...The biggest outrage, however, is that Magaziner was leading the move to repeal the sanctions while Commerce DepartMarch 1997 - The American Spectator ment official John Huang—already at the center of an enormous fundraising scandal —was soliciting political contributions from businesses that stood to gain from a lifting of the sanctions...
...a company suspected by U.S...
...Wang's political connections appear to have begun almost by accident...
...Only ten days after SKY was established, the company made a $15,000 donation to the DNC...
...And yet, as President Clinton told friends at the Renaissance Weekend retreat over New Year's, the solution to the potential threat from China is "trade — more trade...
...And that, says one Republican investigator, is an all too likely scenario: "If you believe in following the money, then all roads lead to China...
...This puts him in the big leagues with contributors like McDonnell Douglas...
...Officials from his Poly Technologies firm had met with American arms dealers in July 1995, and explained that Poly was involved in a scheme to import AK-47 assault rifles into the United States...
...Wang said his company had brokered major aerospace and equipment deals between U.S...
...In 1988, for example, Wang's company organized the $1 billion sale of nuclear intercontinental ballistic missiles to Saudi Arabia...
Vol. 30 • March 1997 • No. 3
