NEW YORK (1010 WINS) — The State Department has refuted a claim made by Gov. Kathy Hochul on Wednesday that People’s Republic of China (PRC)'s New York Consul General Huang Ping has been expelled following the arrest of one of her former senior aides on charges accusing her of acting as a foreign agent for the Chinese government, stating that he simply reached the scheduled end of his rotation.
“I was just on the phone at the request of the Secretary [of State Anthony] Blinken speaking with a high ranking State Department official, and I conveyed my desire to have the consul general from the People’s Republic of China in the New York mission expelled,” Hochul said on Wednesday.
“And I’ve been informed that the consul general is no longer in the New York mission.”
Hochul also said that she has requested that the State Department “take appropriate action in response to the dangerous and outrageous actions taken by the People’s Republic of China and they are involved.”
State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller responded directly to Hochul’s comments regarding Ping, the now-former consul general, during what he said was a conversation with “the Deputy Secretary of State,” Kurt Campbell.
“The consul general was not expelled. Our understanding is that the consul general reached the end of a regular scheduled rotation in August, and so rotated out of the position, but was not expelled,” Miller said. “When it comes to the status of particular employees of a foreign mission, I would refer you to the foreign country to speak to it, but there was no expulsion action.”
Miller said that to his understanding, Ping’s rotation ended at the end of August, and that he assumes a new consul general is rotating in as is the general course of action, but to defer confirmation to the foreign mission.
“That said, foreign interference, including attempts to influence through covert activities that should be registered under the Foreign Agents Registration Act and are not registered, are things that we take very seriously, as you saw by the action the Department of Justice took yesterday,” Miller added.
Miller spoke in reference to the FBI’s Tuesday arrest of Linda Sun, 41, and her husband Chris Hu, 40, at their Long Island home.
Sun is charged with violating and conspiring to violate the Foreign Agents Registration Act, visa fraud, alien smuggling and money laundering conspiracy, the DOJ said. She allegedly acted on behalf of the PRC and Chinese Communist Party.
Hu also faces charges of money laundering conspiracy and conspiracy to commit bank fraud and misuse of means of identification.
The couple both pleaded guilty during an initial court appearance on Tuesday afternoon in Brooklyn, and were released on a $1.5 million bond. Sun was barred from having any contact with the PRC’s consulate and mission.
Sun had worked in the Executive Chamber for more than a decade, working under both former Gov. Andrew Cuomo and Hochul. She was terminated in March 2023 after evidence of misconduct was discovered and reported to law enforcement, Avi Small, a Hochul spokesperson, told 1010 WINS on Tuesday.
“Prior to the time I became governor, she was involved in making a lot of decisions related to the relationship between the administration at the time and the Chinese government,” Hochul said at a separate Wednesday press conference. “Promoting Chinese viewpoints and giving them proclamations and visas. And actually at the same time really diminishing involvement with the country of Taiwan. It is shocking in its scale.”
Hochul went on to confirm that her office alerted the authorities immediately, and expanded on Sun’s position, stating that she was doing “more proclamations and outreach to the community,” but had no access to documentation, security information of cybersecurity.
“To think any foreign agent, any foreign government has the audacity to infiltrate a government organization like the State of New York has to be addressed with and we’ll be talking more about what we want to see happen later today,” the governor said, before confirming her complete cooperation with the Eastern District of New York’s prosecution.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.