When Andrew Cuomo was HUD secretary in 1999, he hosted an event titled “50th Anniversary Chinese Delegation Dinner” for a delegation of the Chinese Ministry of Construction. 1999 marked 50 years since the Chinese Communist Party under Mao Tse-tung took over China in 1949, marking the beginning of a regime that would murder 70 million Chinese people.
In his speech, Cuomo discussed how both China and the West have traditionally similar beliefs in the importance of good housing, and he concluded: “So please, friends, join me in a toast to the People’s Republic, to Minister Yu, and to our beautiful journey together.”
That this speech took place in November of 1999 makes Cuomo’s toast even more astonishing, considering what had been revealed earlier that year. As David Horowitz writes:
In May 1999, a bi-partisan House committee, headed by Representative Christopher Cox, released a report which was tersely summarized by the Wall Street Journal in these harrowing words: “The espionage inquiry found Beijing has stolen U.S. design data for nearly all elements needed for a major nuclear attack on the U.S., such as advanced warheads, missiles and guidance systems.” Among the factors contributing to these unprecedented losses–most of which took place during the Clinton years–the report identified lax security by the Administration.
Two committees of Congress headed by Dan Burton and Fred Thompson attempted to get to the bottom of the matter to see if there was any connection between these problems and the Riady-Huang fund-raising efforts, particularly the illegal contributions by foreign agents of the Chinese military and intelligence establishments. The investigations failed because the Committee Republicans were stonewalled by the Clinton Administration, their Democratic colleagues and the witnesses called. In all, 105 of these witnesses either took the Fifth Amendment or fled the country to avoid cooperating with investigators. They did this not only with the tacit acquiescence of the Clinton Administration, but the active help of Clinton officials.
The reference to “the Riady-Huang fund-raising efforts” refers to the activities of a Chinese intelligence network that illegally funneled millions of dollars to the Clinton presidential campaigns of both 1992 and 1996. During the Clinton administration, Chinese intelligence assets were appointed to key positions in the government’s national security apparatuses, and major counterespionage safeguards were dismantled.
The grand defense heist was the result, but that wasn’t all. A bizarre campaign to beautify the Communist regime also was undertaken. The most noteworthy occasion took place immediately after the 1996 election when Clinton brought General Chi Haotian–identified by Center for Security Policy president Frank Gaffney as “the man who, as Chinese chief of staff, planned and executed the tank-backed assault that murdered some 3,700 democracy demonstrators in [Tiananmen] Square in 1989”–to the Oval Office. A photograph of this event is shown prominently on the cover of Red Dragon Rising: Communist China’s Military Threat to America by Edward Timperlake and William C. Triplett II. During that visit, Chi gave a speech at the National Defense University in which he proclaimed “not a single person lost his life in Tiananmen Square.”
Writing about this in 1996, Gaffney made a remark that in retrospect seems eerily prophetic:
Meanwhile, Back in Hong Kong
Ominously, the same day that General Chi was testing the extent of the present U.S. administration’s moral collapse, China was laying the groundwork for what may be its next major move to crush democratic aspirations — by force, if necessary. Beijing arranged the selection of Tung Chee-hwa to be its puppet ruler of Hong Kong after the colony reverts to Chinese control on 1 July 1997. This step, taken over the strenuous objections of Hong Kong’s democratic forces, is of a piece with the plans Tung’s masters have announced to dismantle the elected Legislative Council and move forces into Hong Kong so as to ensure what is euphemistically called an orderly transition to Communist sovereignty.
That “Chief Executive” Tung is comfortable implementing such plans was evident in a profile published in today’s New York Times. According to the Times, Tung has “made it clear that he has little patience for Hong Kong’s recent experiment with democratic politics. ‘Our society has become too political in recent years.’ …He has emphasized the need to roll back [British Governor Chris] Patten’s democratic changes, to abolish the elected legislature and to enforce a more authoritarian executive government….”
The coincidence of the timing of General Chi’s revisionist remarks and the ascendancy of Tung Chee-hwa is particularly ominous. The failure of the Clinton Administration publicly to rebut — not to say, condemn — a mass murderer’s distortion of one act of genocidal repression may actually induce General Chi and the rest of the leadership in Beijing to believe that the United States will also ignore a future one in Hong Kong should they deem it necessary. If so, there will blood on the hands of Mr. Clinton and his National Security Advisor Anthony Lake — along with those of the outgoing Secretaries of State and Defense, Warren Christopher and William Perry.
Although it has taken them over a decade and a half, the Reds are indeed making their move to crush democracy in Hong Kong–provoking the mass, pro-democracy “Umbrella Revolution” protests that are confronting the Communists in that capitalist city today. Solidarity rallies in support of the Hong Kong Umbrella Revolution have taken place all over the world, including in New York City’s Chinatown and Times Square.
It would be a real shame if New Yorkers who support the freedom fighters in Hong Kong should continue to be governed by a man like Cuomo, who for Clinton’s sake would raise his glass to the Red Butchers of Beijing.
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