A Chinese pro-democracy dissident targeted by Communist Party spies in New York City said the recent conviction of a Chinatown community leader for espionage restores his faith in American democracy.
However, Yan Xiong — a one-time student organizer who was exiled from his country — also warned the Trump administration to keep a close eye on Chinese Communist Party operatives in the US.
“Donald Trump must be aware that China remains a totalitarian state, and it is only becoming more entrenched behind the veneer of its gleaming cities,” Yan Xiong told The Post via an interpreter.
“The Chinese people endure immense suffering, and this suffering is inherently linked to the regime. As long as the authoritarian system remains in power, there will be no freedom.”
Yan, 61, was harassed and followed by CCP agents when he ran in a Democratic primary campaign for Congress in Brooklyn in 2022.
Chinese government agents tried to disrupt the campaign, and even attempted to set him up with a prostitute to smear his name, according to court documents.
“We came to American soil expecting a land of freedom, democracy, human rights and the rule of law,” said Yan, a pastor and father of nine children, who has since moved to Florida.
“An authoritarian regime shouldn’t be able to have direct contact with us here, nor should they be allowed to directly carry out persecution.”
Last week, Chinatown community leader “Harry” Lu Jianwang was convicted after evidence revealed his dealings with China’s Ministry of Public Security — which ordered him to hang a banner inside the glass building his nonprofit owns in Lower Manhattan proudly announcing that the site was a “Police Overseas Service Station” for China’s Fujian province. He now faces up to 10 years in prison for acting as an illegal foreign agent of China.
The Post first revealed the police station, located on the 4th floor of 107 East Broadway run by the America ChangLe Association, a nonprofit that owns the building.
When The Post visited last week — as our video report shows — several elderly Chinese were playing mahjong, and refused comment about the police station.
Yan arrived in the US as a political refugee in 1992 after helping organize student protests in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square three years earlier. As one of the leaders of the pro-democracy protestors he went to prison for 19 months in China.
Yan — who said he is mulling a potential Democratic congressional primary run in Brooklyn — told The Post he had heard the Chinese government set up police stations masquerading as community centers in cities around the world, but initially thought it wasn’t true.
There are more than 100 such police stations, masquerading as community centers, in cities around the world, according to reports.
“We thought it was just pure fantasy when we heard about these police stations,” said Yan. “It is truly unbelievable that they are extending China’s totalitarian rule onto American soil right in the heart of the United States. It is a grave insult. It is a gross violation of American law and dignity.”
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