A mayoral campaign aide to Andrew Cuomo resigned after The Post questioned the years he spent working for companies tied to the Chinese Communist Party and his meteoric rise through the Democratic Party, which alarmed local politicos and national security experts alike.
Dr. Lining “Larry” He stepped down from his role as Cuomo’s Asian outreach director Friday, a week after The Post reached out to him and the Cuomo campaign about his extensive business ties to his native China.
He had served as an executive for a powerful state-owned conglomerate that has CCP cells embedded in its corporate hierarchy, records and news reports obtained by The Post showed.
These links, along with his association with a NYC political operative with known Beijing ties, worried experts who study the CCP’s international influence efforts, which China calls the “United Front.”
“His position as an Asian community liaison fits with a tactical pattern that such actors are using to gain political legitimacy and influence,” said Dr. Audrye Wong, a fellow with the American Enterprise Institute and United Front expert.
He’s links to Beijing include:
- As director of asset management of the state-owned Guangxi Beibu Gulf Investment, He pushed both California and Australia for deeper economic ties with China.
- He served from 2013 through 2015 as the former board chairman of Guangxi Beitou Petrochemical Company, a joint venture with state-owned Chinese oil giant Sinopec, according to a bio on the website of a commodity trading firm where He was a managing partner. The company’s current corporate organization chart shows it has an official Chinese Communist Party cell embedded in its leadership.
- A regulatory consulting firm called Penshare-Banyu Technology, based in Chongqing, listed He as a partner. After The Post reached out to He, Penshare-Banyu deleted his picture and profile from its webpage, though it remains visible on Google.
- He owns import business InterStellar Enterprise, which ships plastic bottles into the U.S. from a manufacturer based in Shenzhen. His wife, Jing Lei, formed a new company weeks after the couple moved to Brooklyn that import manifests show brought in roughly 8.5 tons of plastic bottles from China in May alone.
The Post found He, 48, did not disclose any of these business relationships on mandatory filings he made as chief-of-staff to Assemblyman William Colton (D-Brooklyn), a job he started in late 2023 while living in upstate New York.
The Cuomo campaign did not answer what sort of vetting process He underwent for the liaison job, and admitted He failed to properly disclose his business dealings to the Assembly, sending images of what it said were corrected filings in response to The Post’s questions.
“Larry is a district leader and a known quantity in the community who does his job well,” said Cuomo spokeswoman Esther Jenson, who said any links to the CCP amounted to “guilt by association.”
He vehemently denied to The Post any involvement with the United Front or the CCP.
“I’ve never been an asset beholden to the Chinese government and oppose any and all foreign government influence in our political process,” He told The Post. “Becoming an American citizen remains one of the highest honors of my life. The fact the CCP has been trying to assert itself is undeniable and something our community always looks out for.”
He acknowledged his relationships with the various Chinese state entities, but said he left the jobs in 2015 because he disliked the “bureaucratic” work and moved back to the U.S., where he had gotten his doctorate in the 2000s and where his wife and son lived.
And He denied Australian news reports that he repeatedly visited the country to push import deals, and insisted he had only done “startup training” at the Chongqing-based Penshare-Banyu, despite being listed on its site as a partner in the firm.
In October 2024, He was photographed attending an October celebration of the 75th anniversary of the birth of the People’s Republic of China, alongside Brooklyn activist John Chan — who Wong has identified as the big wheel in the CCP’s New York machine.
Chan, 70, a one-time gangster who pleaded guilty to trafficking heroin and human trafficking, has participated in CCP events in the United States and China and publicly battled American policies supportive of the freedom of Hong Kong and the persecuted Uyghur ethnic minority. The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs listed his activism on a webpage titled “Activities of Overseas Chinese Affairs and Chinese-Funded Institutions,” according to the Washington Post.
Critics have accused Chan and his operatives of trying to oust anti-Beijing members of the New York State Assembly, and have warned of pro-CCP agents working to infiltrate local Chinese community events.
Chan has never faced formal allegations of spying but the FBI questioned him ahead of his trip to a CCP event on the mainland last year, according to the National Review, though no details of this interview have emerged. Chan did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
He admitted that he knew Chan from community events, but denied having any formal relationship with him. Wong acknowledged that these connections, like He’s business ties, do not prove he works for Beijing — but mark him as a figure with definite “political connections,” and likely a strong understanding of the CCP’s aims and interests.
“Someone with his background who is active in local politics or American politics, that is something politicians like Cuomo should be aware of and should be mindful of,” Wong said of He.
After moving permanently to the U.S. from China in 2016, He bought a $317,790 five-bedroom home the Syracuse suburbs with his wife, a longtime professor at the local state university, records show.
He formed his import firm there in 2018, and held the role of managing partner at OneStream Capital, which is headquartered in the town where he lived and was founded by a veteran of the Beijing-controlled China Venturetech Investment Corporation.
He took his job with Colton in December 2023, and told The Post he moved to Brooklyn for the gig, even though he kept his upstate home.
It wasn’t until November 2024 that He registered to vote in New York City, listing a rented condo on Bay Parkway in Bensonhurst as his residence and attesting on the form that he had never cast a ballot in his life. He said the registration coincided with him becoming a citizen.
Barely a month after becoming a New York City voter, the Kings County Democratic Party — led by Assemblywoman Rodneyse Bichotte Hermelyn — appointed He as a district leader. Just days after the appointment, He and his wife bought their own $830,000 condo on Kings Highway.
In March, He was named to Cuomo’s campaign — stunning community stalwarts.
“I have experience in the Brooklyn community for 20 years, and I have no idea where he comes from,” said one Chinese-American activist, who works with immigrants in Bensonhurst and Sunset Park, and who requested anonymity out of fear of reprisals.
“When I asked for more information about this person, it’s a mystery. Nobody knows where he comes from.”
Cuomo and other local pols have been a target of alleged CCP influence operations in the past, according to the U.S. Department of Justice.
In September, federal prosecutors accused Linda Sun, who served as a Queens community liaison to Cuomo and Gov. Kathy Hochul in Albany, of working as an unregistered foreign agent for Beijing. Cuomo’s team has told The Post Sun had minimal access to the then-governor.
Last summer, the feds arrested two accused Chinese agents who allegedly worked to subvert Taiwan-born pastor and freedom activist Xiong Yan’s bid for a New York congressional seat. In February 2024, the FBI raided the home of Winnie Greco, a longtime ally to John Chan and an aide to Mayor Eric Adams.
These are all reasons Cuomo should be more cautious vetting his staff, said Yaqiu Wang, a veteran human rights researcher who has studied the United Front and the CCP’s transnational influence operations.
“At this point, it’s hardly surprising that individuals with close ties to the Chinese Communist Party are working for politicians in New York,” said Wang.
“Allowing CCP-affiliated individuals and entities to influence American electoral politics isn’t just a national security threat—it’s a human rights issue. New York has long been a refuge for people fleeing repression in China: pro-democracy activists, Tibetans, Uyghurs, and others who came seeking a place where they could speak freely,” she added.
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