New York Gov. Kathy Hochul said on Sept. 4 that Chinese consul general Huang Ping is no longer holding his position after her request to the U.S. State Department that he be ousted. The State Department said the diplomat left because he reached the end of a regularly scheduled rotation.
On Sept. 3, a former top-level aide to Hochul was charged with spying for the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).
Hochul said she reached out to the White House and U.S. Secretary of State after the arrest and indictment of Linda Sun. She asked that the Chinese consul general be removed from his position immediately.
U.S. State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said Hochul spoke to Deputy Secretary of State Kurt Campbell on Sept. 4. Miller said the consul general was not expelled but rather reached the end of a regularly scheduled rotation. When it comes to the status of employees at these missions, the department reaches out to the foreign country, he said.
“I have conveyed my desire to have the counsel general from the People’s Republic of China and the New York mission expelled, and I’ve been informed that the counsel general is no longer in the New York mission,” Hochul said at the press conference.
She said her request was meant to send a message.
“I believe that the Chinese government with their behavior in doing this and working with Linda Sun is not acceptable,” Hochul said. “It’s a statement by us, that we’re not tolerating this, and anybody who represented that government needs to move on. That was what we made clear.”
Sun was dismissed from Hochul’s office in March 2023 for alleged misconduct, and the governor’s office is cooperating with the investigation.
Hochul said on Sept. 4 that Sun’s arrest showed that governments at all levels “certainly” should be more vigilant.
“This is an individual who started way before my time, was put in the position of liaison to the Asian community and global trade issues,” Hochul said.
Sun held state government roles from 2012 to 2023 and allegedly forged Hochul’s signature on invitations that would allow Chinese officials to illegally enter the United States and meet with government officials. She also allegedly used her position to block Taiwanese representatives from meeting government officials and edit then-Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s statements to remove references to Taiwan as a country.
According to the indictment, Sun found ways to allow CCP officials to gain access to New York state leaders during the COVID-19 pandemic, at one time even calling an official on her phone during a private conference call between multiple state departments, warning the CCP official, “Keep your phone muted.” The official wrote to Sun that the call had been “very useful.”
The indictment also alleges that Sun received millions of dollars in return for her work for the CCP and never declared her role as a foreign agent or the benefits she received. Sun and Hu pleaded not guilty during their initial court appearance in Brooklyn on Sept. 3 and will be released on bond.
She said Sun had also been able to use her position to obtain visas for CCP officials, and that her office had alerted law enforcement to some “evidence that didn’t look right.”
“To think that any foreign agent, any foreign government to infiltrate a government organization like the state of New York has to be addressed,” she said.
