Prominent places in New York repeatedly host Chinese official who praised CCP, denied Uyghur genocide – American News

Some of New York’s most prominent venues recently hosted as guest of honor a Chinese official who called China’s ruling Communist Party “great” and called reports a “lie” systematic persecution of minorities inside China.

Huang Ping, who has been the consul general of the Chinese consulate in New York since 2018, has made appearances over the past week at the Barclays Center, the Nasdaq MarketSite and the Empire State Building, rubbing shoulders with prominent business leaders. American company at every stop.

The NBA’s Brooklyn Nets, who play at Barclays in Brooklyn, celebrated the Chinese New Year of the Rabbit on Thursday. Huang went to the basketball court, where he spoke briefly and received a sweater and a stuffed rabbit as a gift from Sam Zussman, CEO of the Nets’ parent company, BSE Global.

The game was “an opportunity for us to come together and pay homage to the rich history and traditions associated with Chinese culture across the world and in our own community,” Zussman said.

TIMES SQUARE NYE CELEBRATION FEATURED CHINESE OFFICIAL WHO SAID THE COMMUNIST PARTY IS A ‘GREAT PARTY’

Earlier in the week, Ping rang the opening bell for the Nasdaq stock exchange in Times Square, also to celebrate the Chinese Lunar New Year. Chinese state media was quick to promote Huang’s appearance – including warm remarks by Nasdaq Vice Chairman Robert H. McCooey, Jr., welcoming the consul and praising Nasdaq’s ties to China.

“Nasdaq’s commitment to China remains very strong,” McCooey said at the ceremony. “We are extremely proud to be home to more than 175 Chinese companies, innovative and iconic companies that embody the entrepreneurial spirit that helps our two nations continue to grow.

The Nasdaq also lists many of America’s largest tech companies and has been scrutinized by US officials, along with other major stock exchanges, for the listing of Chinese companies on concerns about transparency and threats to national security.

All Chinese companies “are required to establish a CCP [Chinese Communist Party] cells in their operations and support the CCP’s security agencies,” according to the China Task Force Reporta major project led by members of Congress in 2020. “The CCP integrates its members into every business and organization.”

US officials have also said that Chinese espionage costs the United States more than $600 billion a year in stolen intellectual property.

Still, Huang echoed McCooey’s hospitality, saying China would reach its “destination” and “share the fruits” with everyone.

“China is very clear that we will open our doors and open ourselves wider to work with the international community, to achieve our goal, reach our destination and share the fruits with everyone,” he said. declared. “As we now head into the Year of the Rabbit, we should move as fast as the Rabbit does and work together to implement the consensus reached by our two Presidents to make this relationship more productive and fruitful for the benefit of our people and of the people all around the world.”

NY GOVERNMENT. HOCHUL MET CHINESE OFFICIAL WHO CALLED GENOCIDE OF UYGHUR MUSLIMS “LIES”

Michael Sobolik, a researcher in Indo-Pacific studies at the American Foreign Policy Council, recently told TOU Digital that China is exerting “harmful influence” in the United States through “American voices to advance its own agenda. hostile”.

Last week, Huang also attended the Empire State Building’s lighting ceremony for the start of the Lunar New Year.

“We are delighted to extend our heartfelt New Year’s wishes to the entire Chinese community here in the United States, around the world, and especially in China,” said Tony Malkin, Chairman, President and CEO of management of Empire State Realty Trust. ceremony.

Huang noted that it has been half a century since the US-China engagement began under the Nixon administration and called for improving people-to-people exchanges between the two countries.

Despite the warm rhetoric, however, Huang has a habit of making controversial remarks that haven’t come up at any of his recent rallies in New York. Most notably, he has frequently praised the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and strongly defended China’s treatment of Uyghurs, a predominantly Muslim ethnic minority, in the Xinjiang region.

“There are a lot of lies here, fabricated by some people with their own political agenda,” Huang said. said in an August 2021 interview, denying the existence of genocide and internment camps targeting Uyghurs. “As I said, there is no genocide, not a single piece of evidence to prove that there is genocide or anything there. It’s just slander.”

The American Holocaust Memorial Museum and the State Department under the Trump and Biden administrations assessed that China was committing genocide against the Uyghurs. Since 2017, the Chinese government has reportedly imprisoned more than a million Uyghurs in concentration camps, where, according to leaked documents inside China, inmates are subjected to rape, torture, forced labor, brainwashing and forced sterilization.

Huang also called the CCP a “big party” and described the camps where Uyghurs are held as educational.

TIMES SQUARE NYE CELEBRATION FEATURED CHINESE OFFICIAL WHO SAID THE COMMUNIST PARTY IS A ‘GREAT PARTY’

“I see these centers as a campus rather than camps,” he said. “We bring these people there to be educated. And it’s been pretty effective in terms of countering terrorism and de-radicalizing. So far, there hasn’t been a single terrorist attack in exactly four years.”

When previously contacted for comment, the Chinese Consulate in New York echoed Huang’s comments, telling TOU Digital that “the Xinjiang-related issue is not about human rights” and that a “a lie repeated a thousand times is nothing but a lie”.

Huang is no stranger to being featured at major events in New York. Earlier this year, for example, the consul general attended the Times Square New Year’s Eve “Hong Kong Rocks!” Party. The Biden administration on Thursday extended a program that protects Hong Kong residents in the United States from deportation amid concerns about a worsening crackdown in Hong Kong.

Huang too previously participated in the Nasdaq ringtone ceremony and the lighting of the Empire State Building on several occasions.

In April 2022, the Consul made headlines for speaking at the 25th Annual Harvard College China Forum at Harvard Business School, where he called on Americans to be more “tolerant of diversity” and accept China’s mode of governance.

Supporters of China’s Uyghur Muslim minority wave the East Turkestan flag and hold placards on December 20, 2019 during a protest in Fatih in Istanbul. – More than 1,000 demonstrators marched in Istanbul on Friday to protest China’s treatment of predominantly Muslim Uyghurs in Xinjiang, an AFP correspondent said. They called for an end to the crackdown in China’s northwest region, where more than a million Uyghurs and Muslim minorities are believed to be held in re-education camps.
(Ozan Kose/AFP)

NASDAQ RINGING CEREMONY FEATURED CHINESE OFFICIAL WHO CALLED GENOCIDE OF UYGHUR MUSLIMS ‘LIES’

“Over the past 100 years, the CPC has united and led the Chinese people to achieve world-renowned achievements in developing our country and improving people’s lives,” Huang said at Harvard, according to a transcript by the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs. “China will unswervingly be a builder of world peace, a contributor to global development and a defender of international order, and will continue to make unremitting efforts for human development and progress.”

Huang chastised America for having “narrow-minded people who find it difficult to accept these countries with different histories, cultures and systems from the United States,” adding that these voices “always point the finger at these countries. and want to change them”.

TOU

“The path of socialism with Chinese characteristics is rooted in the 5,000-year-old Chinese civilization,” Huang said. “It is the choice of the 1.4 billion Chinese people. China’s development and progress over the past decades have fully proved that it is the right path that suits China’s national conditions. We will follow this without hesitation. A survey conducted by Harvard Kennedy School on China for 10 consecutive years shows that the Chinese people’s satisfaction with the government has remained above 90% year after year. We hope the US side will abide by the path chosen independently by the Chinese people and will welcome a peaceful and prosperous China.”

BSE Global, Nasdaq and Empire State Realty Trust did not respond to requests for comment.

TOU’ Cameron Cawthorne and Jessica Chasmar contributed reporting.