The troubled charity that runs a Chinese police station in Lower Manhattan, allegedly set up to spy on Chinese nationals in the US, held its annual gala dinner last month with Eric Adams as its honored guest — but the mayor did not disclose his participation at the event on his official agenda, The Post has learned.
Adams attended the glitzy Sept. 26 dinner at a Flushing, Queens, restaurant, sponsored by the America ChangLe Association NY Inc., which owns and operates the police station on East Broadway that has been accused by a human rights group of spying on the Chinese diaspora. The non-profit was blacklisted by the IRS in May, according to public records.
According to his official public schedule, Adams returned from a short visit to the Dominican Republic that day “to support recovery efforts following Hurricane Fiona.” The schedule indicated that Adams would travel back to New York City in the afternoon, but it made no mention of the dinner which began at 6 p.m.
However, according to photos posted of the event by businessman George Xu on his LinkedIn page, Adams was onstage at the event. Other Democrats in attendance included State Senator John Liu and City Council Member Sandra Ung, and representatives from the offices of Congresswoman Grace Meng and City Council member Christopher Marte. At least two members of the NYPD were also seen in the photos.
Xu, a Queens-based real estate developer, attended the party which featured 1,000 guests and celebrated the inauguration of America ChangLe Association’s new president, James Lu, according to his LinkedIn post.
Lu, the president of a Queens-based food company, contributed $4,000 to Adams’ mayoral campaign in 2019 and 2021, according to public records.
At the dinner, Adams made a speech honoring the America ChangLe Association, according to a Queens-based Chinese language news service post. “As an important and powerful social organization, the ChangLe Association of the United States gathers a large number of economic talents, makes great contributions to New York where they live, and plays an important role in promoting new immigrants to improve their quality of life in New York,” Adams said, according to the outlet.
The non-profit, which was incorporated in New York in 2013 and listed its charitable mission as a “social gathering place for Fujianese people,” paid $1.3 million three years later for the suite of offices at 107 East Broadway that houses the Fuzhou Police Overseas Chinese Affairs bureau, filings show.
In May, the IRS yanked the group’s tax-exempt status for its failure to submit tax filings for three straight years, according to public records. A phone number linked to the charity’s East Broadway offices “is currently turned off or temporarily off line,” a recording says.
The Manhattan police 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 government-issued identification and drivers’ licenses.
But the stations allegedly have a darker purpose, according to a recently released whistle-blower report.
“Openly labeled as overseas police service stations … they contribute to ‘resolutely cracking down on all kinds of illegal and criminal activities involving overseas Chinese,’” claims 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.
“These latest revelations show Mayor Adams is failing to fundamentally ensure the people of New York City and the world that their safety and wellbeing are firmly rooted in the laws of the United States of America, not the Communist Party of China,” said Tom Anderson, director of the Government Integrity Project at the National Legal and Policy Center, a Virginia-based watchdog group.
Federal agents have long sought to crack down on spying and harassment of Chinese nationals by the Chinese government in the US. On Thursday, the Department of Justice unsealed an indictment against seven Chinese nationals in Brooklyn, charging them with “participating in a scheme to cause the forced repatriation of a PRC national residing in the United States,” according to a DOJ press release.
“The victims in this case sought to flee an authoritarian government, leaving behind their lives and family, for a better life here,” said Michael Driscoll, Assistant Director-in-Charge, of the FBI’s New York Field Office in the statement. “That same government sent agents to the United States to harass, threaten, and forcibly return them to the People’s Republic of China. The actions we allege are illegal, and the FBI will not allow adversaries to break laws designed to protect our nation and our freedom.”
Calls and emails to Adams, Liu and Ung were not returned Friday.
“Members of the NYPD’s Community Affairs Bureau were invited to attend a gala held by the American Changle Association of NY in September. There were roughly 1000 members of the Asian community present at this event,” a DCPI spokesperson told The Post. “NYPD Community Affairs members were there to promote community relations and safety as they do at any event they attend.
A spokeswoman for Marte confirmed that “a representative of our office was in attendance. We were unaware of any illegal affiliations with the Chinese government.”
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