Andrew M. Cuomo’s mayoral campaign hired an adviser who was once the chairman of a state-owned oil company in China, a position typically held by people with close ties to the Chinese government.
In March, Mr. Cuomo announced that the adviser, Larry He, had become the campaign’s Asian outreach director to help garner support among New York City’s 600,000 Chinese Americans and other Asian communities ahead of this month’s Democratic primary.
Mr. He worked at the China-owned Guangxi Beibu Gulf Investment Coastal Petrochemical Co. and its parent company a decade ago, according to review of Chinese company documents and several online biographies. (His Chinese name is He Lining.)
Mr. He was chairman of the oil firm and also held other titles at the parent company, including director of asset management and head of investment promotion, before entering the New York political scene. He is now the chief of staff to State Assemblyman William Colton, who represents parts of Brooklyn.
In an interview, Mr. He acknowledged that his employment history in China could raise questions about his connections to the Chinese government and said he had omitted the experiences from a recent résumé to avoid causing concern.
Mr. He denied any past or current links to the Chinese Communist Party, saying he was never a member and that he had become a naturalized U.S. citizen in 2024 — undergoing a process that involved renouncing his Chinese citizenship.
“I don’t act under any kind of influence of the Chinese government or any entities,” Mr. He said.
Still, because his senior post brought him into contact with government and Communist Party officials, experts in Chinese government and politics said he met the criteria of someone whom China might try to use to influence politics in the United States.
“Campaign staff with strong ties to top state-owned enterprises in China would be a prime target for pressure, influence or co-option,” said Alex Joske, an analyst who has testified before a Congressional commission on Chinese influence operations.
After The New York Times sought comment from Mr. He for this article, he resigned from Mr. Cuomo’s campaign, saying he planned to return to his full-time position with Mr. Colton’s office “effective immediately.”
“Let’s be crystal clear, it is not a crime to be born in China, it is not a crime to be an immigrant in this nation, I am a proud U.S. citizen and the premise of this story is xenophobic, false, defamatory and harmful to me and my family,” the statement said, but added: “I do not want to be a distraction to this campaign.”
The Chinese government has made repeated efforts to target dissidents and infiltrate New York politics in recent years, according to federal prosecutors. An aide hired by Mr. Cuomo when he was governor in 2012 was charged last year with acting as an unregistered agent of China. She has pleaded not guilty.
And Mayor Eric Adams, who is running for re-election, employed his own aide whose homes were raided last year by F.B.I. agents looking for evidence of Chinese influence. She has not been charged and has denied any wrongdoing.
Mr. He said that he did not tell anyone on Mr. Cuomo’s campaign, which has paid him $15,000 for organizing community events, about his previous work in China.
A spokesman for Mr. Cuomo’s campaign did not immediately provide a response to a request for comment.
Mr. He, 48, was born in northwestern China and attended university in Wuhan before earning a doctorate in ecological economics in 2007 at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in New York State, according to his résumé.
Before graduating, he served as an intern at the State Assembly in Albany for Mr. Colton and then worked for a few years at electric grid operators in New York and California.
Mr. He said he moved back to China in late 2010 to care for his grandmother. The Chinese economy was booming, he said, and with a doctorate from a prestigious American university, his talents were in demand.
He became director of asset management at a state-run investment firm called Guangxi Beibu Gulf Investment Group Corp. in 2011. In that role, Mr. He had some familiarity with the sprawling array of companies controlled by the group, ranging from oil firms to toll roads and even a water company. He left in 2015.
During his tenure, according to a prospectus, Guangxi Beibu was among the biggest shareholders in a tin company whose investors included two people with close ties to the highest level of Chinese state power: the older sister and brother-in-law of China’s president, Xi Jinping.
Mr. He said he did not know about the Xi family’s stake in the company.
He said he left China because he was “fed up” with the state company’s stifling bureaucracy. “That’s not the life I wanted,” he said.
In 2016, Mr. He and his wife bought a house outside of Syracuse, around the same time he became a partner in a small investment company there.
He also began helping a fish processing company in Kentucky, Two Rivers Fisheries, find Chinese investors. The company catches Asian carp, an invasive species, and turns it into fish balls, pet food and fertilizer.
“He helped me bring the investors, and he helped me find the buyers,” said Angie Yu, the founder. “He worked really hard.”
Within a few years, he left the private sector and rose swiftly in South Brooklyn politics. He and his wife volunteered for Susan Zhuang, a conservative Democrat, in her successful 2023 campaign for a City Council seat centered in the Brooklyn neighborhood of Bensonhurst. Ms. Zhuang did not answer questions about Mr. He.
In late 2023, Mr. He became Mr. Colton’s chief of staff, the job previously held by Ms. Zhuang, at a salary of $55,000. Mr. Colton did not respond to messages seeking comment.
Mr. He said he felt a calling to enter public service in the United States. “I always have this obligation to help people,” he said.
In leaving behind a high-ranking business post in China, Mr. He followed an unusual career path, experts on Chinese influence said.
Andrew Wedeman, a retired political scientist at Georgia State University who studies Chinese corruption, noted that Mr. He left a position of influence in China “to return to the U.S. to become the chief of staff of an Assemblyman.”
“Seems like a very odd transition,” Mr. Wedeman added.
Liu Yi contributed reporting, and Kitty Bennett contributed research.
Jay Root is an investigative reporter for The Times based in Albany, N.Y., covering the people and events influencing — and influenced by — state and local government.
Michael Forsythe a reporter on the investigations team at The Times, based in New York. He has written extensively about, and from, China.
Bianca Pallaro is a Times reporter who combines traditional reporting with data analysis skills to investigate wrongdoing and explain complex issues by turning numbers into insightful information.
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