The Chinese Connection
The latest twist in the
campaign finance furor is the allegation that the Chinese government funneled
money to President Clinton's re-election campaign in an effort to influence
U.S. policy. What is the evidence linking Chinese government money to Clinton?
Did the president know about such an initiative and was he or his staff
influenced by it?
No one
(except for a Chinese Embassy spokesman) disputes that the Chinese government
planned on contributing to the Democratic National Committee and 30
congressional campaigns. In early 1996, the National Security Agency
eavesdropped on multiple conversations between the Beijing government and its
Washington, D.C., embassy, describing its intention to spend $2 million on the
upcoming election. Campaign contributions from foreigners, let alone foreign
governments, are forbidden by U.S. election law.
According to most analyses, Beijing worried that Clinton
would follow through on his 1992 campaign promise to revoke China's Most
Favored Nation (MFN) trading status to punish human-rights abuses. In
addition, China has grown increasingly concerned over the disparity between
Taiwan 's sophisticated Washington lobbying and public-relations
operation and its own piecemeal setup.
So far,
there is no hard evidence of whether the Chinese government followed through on
any of its plans to influence American elections. The FBI has been unable to
trace back any donations to the Chinese government. But there has been
speculation about different channels the Chinese government could have used to
funnel contributions. Media stories have focused on John Huang, Charles Trie,
and Pauline Kanchanalak, three Asian-Americans who raised nearly $3 million for
the Democratic National Committee. Ultimately, the DNC returned the money
because of suspicion that it included laundered foreign cash .
Here are the grounds for suspicion:
John Huang : The
former deputy assistant secretary of commerce and DNC vice chair is said to be
connected to China through his long-time employer, the Lippo Group , an
Indonesian conglomerate. When Huang left Lippo to work at Commerce in 1994, he
received a $788,750 severance package and continued his relationship with the
firm. Huang's Commerce Department logs show that he made 70 phone calls from
his government office to executives of a Los Angeles bank controlled by Lippo.
In 1996, Huang raised $1 million in donations for the DNC from donors with ties
to Lippo. The conglomerate has multiple investments in China. In 1993 Lippo
even became the government's partner when it sold 50 percent of its holdings in
a Honk Kong bank to a Chinese government corporation. During his 18-month stint
at the Commerce Department, Huang met with Chinese government officials on
three separate occasions.
Pauline Kanchanalak :
The founder of the United States-Thai Business Council represents Thai
industrialist Dhanin Chearavanont, whose conglomerates are among the largest
outside investors in China and who is a partner in several Chinese
government-run corporations. There has been speculation that the $235,000
Kanchanalak personally donated to the party originated with Chearavanont and
his government partners.
Charles Yah Lin Trie: The Little Rock restaurateur raised $639,000 for
the Clinton legal-defense fund. Of the three, Trie's links to Beijing are the
clearest. On his resume he even boasts about his friendship with senior
government officials. His major business partner in China is a government
official in the southern city of Guangzhou. Also, last year Trie arranged for
Chinese arms dealer Wang Jun , the head of a state-run corporation, to
attend a White House coffee organized by the DNC.
Though all three were viable conduits for laundered Chinese
government money, there is nothing more than highly circumstantial evidence to
suggest they actually participated in a government scheme. But they also could
have raised such large sums by laundering money from their foreign business
contacts. These businesses all have dealings with Beijing that give them an
independent incentive to influence U.S. policy toward China. (This second
scenario would also be illegal.)
The Lippo
group also paid $100,000 to former Associate Attorney General Webster
Hubbell last year, while he was waiting to begin a jail term for bilking
clients of his former law firm. Hubbell is a close friend of both Clintons. At
the least, he was hired in an attempt to influence administration China policy.
That would not be unusual. But skeptics suggest a darker scenario: that the
Lippo fee was a payoff to Hubbell to keep quiet about Whitewater.
There are assertions that Chinese donations to
members of Congress swayed Congress' 1994 vote to renew MFN. The Wall Street
Journal reported that in 1994, while at Commerce, John Huang consulted with
Rep. Howard Berman of California, an influential Democrat on the House
International Relations Committee. Their conversations took place at precisely
the moment the House reconsidered China MFN. Lobbying Congress was not part of
Huang's job at Commerce, and Huang had contributed to Berman's 1994 campaign.
According to the Journal , nine other Democratic lawmakers who received
contributions from Huang spoke with him during this same period. But again,
there's no evidence linking Huang's involvement to the Chinese government.
Last
June, the FBI told six members of Congress that the Chinese government
intended to illegally contribute money to their campaigns. (The six were Sens.
Barbara Boxer and Dianne Feinstein of California, Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan
of New York, and Rep. Nancy Pelosi of California, all Democrats, plus two
others not yet identified.) Apparently, none of these members received
donations they could link to the Chinese government, though Feinstein did
return a $12,000 check brought in by Huang. All known targets, except Pelosi,
did vote for MFN and had been strong MFN supporters all along.
Clinton claims to have known nothing about the Chinese
plans. In fact, the White House says that when the FBI briefed National
Security Council staffers on the subject, the FBI told the staffers
specifically not to pass information to higher-ups. The FBI denies this.
According to Attorney General Janet Reno, the NSC staffers probably
misconstrued the agents' instructions to treat the matter delicately.
Though nobody contests the
president's assertion that he was kept in the dark, critics speculate that the
atmosphere at the White House might have discouraged NSC staffers from
informing their superiors. Previous NSC warnings about Huang and other
Asian-American donors had been ignored, and fund raising was known to be a high
priority.
