Feinstein’s Ties To China Go Way Deeper Than An Alleged Office Spy thefederalist.com/2018/08/08/sen…
“I sometimes say that in my last life maybe I was Chinese.”—Sen. Dianne Feinstein
As media, intelligence agency, and political scrutiny of foreign meddling is seemingly at its apex, a story with big national security implications involving a high-ranking senator with access to America’s most sensitive intelligence information has been hiding in plain sight.
For the last 40 years, no politician in America has arguably maintained a deeper, more longstanding and friendlier relationship with China, at the highest levels of its Communist Party, than Feinstein. It dates back to the opening of U.S.-Chinese diplomatic relations in 1979
Shortly thereafter, Feinstein, then mayor of San Francisco, established a “sister city” relationship with Shanghai, one of the earliest and most robust such relationships in U.S.-China history.
Soon after, Feinstein led a mayoral delegation to China joined by her husband, investor Richard Blum, a trip they took together many times over the ensuing years as the relationship between both Feinsteins and China grew.
During the 1980s, as mayor of San Francisco, Feinstein developed a close friendship with Shanghai Mayor Jiang Zemin. This substantially enhanced Feinstein’s foreign policy profile, and created an important linkage to the U.S. government for China’s Communist Party (CCP).
Feinstein and Jiang reportedly visited each other regularly in the 1980s, with Jiang once spending Thanksgiving in San Francisco with Feinstein and her husband.
Jiang supposedly danced with Feinstein during one such visit, which surely must have been a propaganda coup for the CCP a la Ted Kennedy and the Soviets.
In 1986, Feinstein and Jiang designated several corporate entities for fostering commercial relations, one named Shanghai Pacific Partners.
Feinstein’s husband served as a director. His financial position was relatively small, less than $500,000 on one project, the only such position in China the Feinstein family held when Feinstein entered the Senate in 1992.
That project was one of the first joint ventures between San Francisco and Chinese investors, reportedly “cited by Chinese officials as a testament to the friendly business ties between Shanghai and San Francisco that Feinstein had initiated.”
Subsequently Blum’s investments in the Middle Kingdom mushroomed.
In May 1993, Feinstein expressed her strong support on the Senate floor for continued trading with China. Contemporaneously, her husband was seeking to raise up to $150M from investors, including himself, for a variety of Chinese enterprises.
As the LA Times reported in a 1994 exposé on Feinstein’s husband’s business ties and the potential conflict of interests they presented: “Such encounters are fondly remembered when deals are clinched back in China, according to American experts in Chinese business practices
They said that Feinstein’s consistent support for China’s interests cannot help but benefit her husband’s efforts to earn profits there.”
The historical record suggests these American experts were right. Blum successfully raised $160M for the aforementioned Asia fund under his Newbridge Capital investment company, including investing $1-2M himself.
The fund invested in several state-owned and Chinese government-linked businesses.
In January 1995, Feinstein was appointed to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Subsequently, she made several visits to China, accompanied by her husband, where she met with senior government officials.
While Feinstein maintained her pro-China positions, in March 1997, the senator revealed that the FBI had warned her the Chinese government might seek to funnel illegal contributions to her campaign fund. She was one of only six members of Congress to receive such a warning.
As the New York Times noted at the time, Feinstein had returned $12,000 in 1994 contributions from people with connections to Lippo Bank, an arm of a multi-billion dollar conglomerate owned by the Riady family, with investments and operations throughout Asia.
It employed a senior American executive named John Huang.
The Riadys had been friends and supporters of the Clintons since Bill Clinton was governor of Arkansas. Clinton named Huang, a top fundraiser for the DNC, his deputy assistant secretary of commerce.
The Riadys had been friends and supporters of the Clintons since Bill Clinton was governor of Arkansas. Clinton named Huang, a top fundraiser for the DNC, his deputy assistant secretary of commerce.
At the time Feinstein disclosed returning the Lippo-tied contributions, Huang was under Justice Department investigation for making potentially illegal contributions to the Democratic Party from foreign sources.
He later pled guilty to violating campaign finance laws as part of the investigation into Chinese attempts to influence U.S. policy through illegal campaign contributions stemming from the 1996 election.
It was later revealed that Huang may have had a direct financial relationship with the Chinese government. The DNC returned more than half of the $3 million he had collected for the party.
In 1998, an unclassified report from the Senate Committee on Governmental Affairs stated that the Riadys—Huang’s former employer, the leader of which had also pled guilty to campaign finance violations—“had a long-term relationship with a Chinese intelligence agency.”
What is the connection to Feinstein? In June 1996, the senator held a fundraiser at her home attended by President Clinton, Huang, and Xiaoming Dia, chairman of a Hong Kong-based investment company in which Lippo Group had owned a controlling stake until 1994.
This Is About Much More than a Chinese Spy
China has for almost 40 years cultivated warm relations with Feinstein.
China has for almost 40 years cultivated warm relations with Feinstein.
Feinstein has uniformly taken political positions supporting greater ties with China while taking a relatively dovish and strictly apologist line on its human rights atrocities.
Feinstein’s husband has profited handsomely during Feinstein’s career from the greatly expanded China trade she supported. It is of course possible that the Feinstein family’s privileged position with the Chinese regime improved his investment opportunities.
Feinstein has served as a key intermediary between China and the U.S., while serving on committees whose work would be of keen interest to the PRC.
A staffer of almost two decades in close proximity to Feinstein was allegedly successfully recruited by China’s MSS and fed China “political intelligence"
Imagine for a second how a motivated and empowered prosecutor would operate in this situation if tasked with exploring “any links and/or coordination” between the Chinese government, Feinstein, and individuals associated with her office.
Few US officials could have been as potentially exposed to the PRC’s skilled intelligence service as Feinstein. Here we have not only proof of a spy, but real evidence of consistently pro-Chinese policy that at very best created the appearance of a financial conflict of interest.
