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NY Times, March 16, 2019
She Extols Trump, Guns and the Chinese Communist Party Line
By Frances Robles, Michael Forsythe and Alexandra Stevenson
JUPITER, Fla. — The Republican National Committee promised an “evening
reception with Donald J. Trump” last March at his Mar-a-Lago resort in
Palm Beach, Fla.
A contribution of $2,700 toward the president’s re-election would get
you in the door. Two seats for dinner were on offer for $25,000. And
there was a third option: for $50,000, dinner for two and a photo with
Mr. Trump.
Cindy Yang was determined to get the photo.
But there was a hurdle. The invitation limited campaign contributions to
$5,400 per person, so Ms. Yang, a Chinese immigrant who had set up a
string of day spas in Florida and was active in groups backed by the
Chinese government and Communist Party, needed others to chip in.
Over the weeks leading up to the event, at least nine people in Ms.
Yang’s orbit, some of them with modest incomes, made donations at
exactly $5,400. She ended up at the dinner.
Ms. Yang was little known outside southern Florida until her name became
associated with the arrest last month of Robert K. Kraft, the owner of
the New England Patriots, in a prostitution sting at a Jupiter massage
parlor. The Miami Herald first reported that she had previously owned
that parlor.
Though she was not charged or implicated in the sting, her other
business efforts have since come under public scrutiny. One promised
rich Chinese clients access to the social scene around Mr. Trump — and
was promoted online with pictures of cabinet members, the Trump family
and even the president himself.
One of the $5,400 political donations came from a 25-year old woman who
gives facials at a beauty school, in a strip mall in nearby Palm Beach
Gardens that is owned by Ms. Yang’s family. Another $5,400 came from a
woman who says she worked as a receptionist at a massage parlor owned by
Ms. Yang’s husband. A third gift of $5,400 came from an associate of Ms.
Yang’s who had been charged in 2014 after a prostitution sting with
practicing health care without a license, police records show.
The receptionist, Bingbing Peranio, listed as a “manager” on her
disclosure, spoke with a reporter about her relationship with Ms. Yang.
She described herself as a big fan of Mr. Trump’s and said Ms. Yang, a
registered Republican, was seen as a leader among Asian-American
Republicans in Florida.
Ms. Peranio said Ms. Yang had come to the spa where she worked at the
time and helped fill out the check toward the president’s campaign. “I
can’t say she was pushing me or not pushing me, but I worked there
then,” she said, speaking at her home in Jupiter. “I was working there.
I didn’t say no.”
Asked if Ms. Yang had reimbursed her for the $5,400, Ms. Peranio said,
“I do not want to answer that question.” Reimbursing someone for a
political contribution or contributing in the name of another person is
illegal.
Multiple people who worked at businesses tied to Ms. Yang made large
donations toward the Trump re-election campaign.
The other contributors declined to be interviewed or did not respond to
requests for comment.
It is rare for workers in the massage and spa business to support
candidates for office at such high-dollar levels, according to an
analysis of Federal Election Commission records. In 2017 and 2018, of
the nearly 65,000 donations made by people listed as massage therapists
on F.E.C. disclosures, only two gave the maximum $5,400, including one
of the Trump donors connected to Ms. Yang.
Ms. Yang, contacted by The New York Times, declined to discuss the
contributions or her attendance at the Mar-a-Lago event. Her lawyer,
Evan W. Turk, did not respond to questions about the donations but said
in a statement to the media on Thursday that “the evidence indicates
that our client has been falsely accused,” without providing further detail.
A spokesman for the Republican National Committee denied “any wrongdoing
on behalf of the R.N.C. or Trump campaign.”
“We only accept donations in accordance with the law,” the spokesman
said in a statement. “If we do see any evidence of illegal
contributions, we report it to the proper authorities. If we were
notified by the authorities that a donation were illegal, we would
return the money.”
In addition to the spa workers, the federal records show three relatives
of Ms. Yang — including her husband and her mother — and two business
associates who donated $5,400. In total, the donations from Ms. Yang and
the others came to at least $54,000.
Ms. Yang got her photo with the president, which she received in the
mail signed by Mr. Trump in silver ink. She posted it to Facebook on
March 22 and to her company’s website, which has since been taken down.
Friends and associates of Ms. Yang — who left China’s frigid northeast
two decades ago and has also gone by Yang Li and Yang Lijuan — said she
had spent a lifetime chasing opportunities.
Ms. Yang, 45, conducted interviews with businesspeople for a
Chinese-language channel in Silicon Valley. She dealt antiques and
promoted artists. She sold medical equipment. She founded a club that
promotes a figure-hugging Chinese silk dress. And she built the chain of
massage parlors and day spas in Florida, including the Orchids of Asia
Day Spa & Massage, where Mr. Kraft and several other wealthy men were
accused of soliciting sex after it changed ownership. Mr. Kraft has
pleaded not guilty.
“When we talked about a situation, she was able to see a business
opportunity where we couldn’t,” said Lu Fang, who has known Ms. Yang for
more than a decade and was a member of the dress club but was not among
the Trump donors. “She knows how to seize an opportunity, and I still
admire her.”
Ms. Yang discovered politics in 2015, and she quickly became a
fund-raiser for Republican candidates and causes, embracing the
lifestyle it demanded, too, according to Ms. Lu and two other
acquaintances of Ms. Yang who spoke on the condition of anonymity.
She attended social events at firing ranges and extolled the virtues of
the Second Amendment, according to photographs posted to her
Chinese-language WeChat account. “The biggest advantage of learning to
use a gun is to make yourself stronger and feel strong support,” she
wrote on the social media site.
One of Ms. Yang’s companies promised Chinese businesspeople access to
exclusive events, including White House visits, “VIP activities at
Mar-a-Lago” and Warren Buffett’s annual meeting of Berkshire Hathaway
shareholders.
She stumped for a stream of politicians and posed for pictures with
Republican personalities, including Sarah Palin. In 2015, she was
photographed with a small group holding a banner at the launch of Jeb
Bush’s presidential campaign. She also helped build a political
organization and fund-raising committee, the National Association of
Asian American Republicans.
The election of Mr. Trump brought new opportunities as the line between
business and politics became especially blurred.
Ms. Yang, who attended the inauguration, started a company — GY US
Investments — that promised Chinese businesspeople access to American
politicians, including Mr. Trump. Clients were offered entry to events,
including White House visits, “VIP activities at Mar-a-Lago” and Warren
Buffett’s annual meeting of Berkshire Hathaway shareholders.
Sun Ye, an actress in Beijing, was among those who appeared in
photographs on Ms. Yang’s website. Ms. Sun said she wanted to travel to
the United States to burnish her image in China and abroad. She said she
took a deluxe tour last year that included visits to Harvard, the Nasdaq
marketplace and the White House. For part of the trip, she said, she
stayed with Ms. Yang.
The highlight, she said, was to be in a photo with the president at a
New Year’s party at Mar-a-Lago, one of the events promoted on Ms. Yang’s
website.
Mr. Trump, however, skipped the party and stayed in Washington because
of a government shutdown. Ms. Sun settled for a photo with his son
Donald Jr.
“I wanted to see the president of the United States, and although I
didn’t meet him, I met his family,” Ms. Sun said in an interview in
Beijing. “It made me feel like I achieved my dream.”
In the past few years, Ms. Yang also began forging ties with
organizations connected to the Chinese Communist Party and the
government in Beijing.
In 2016, she joined the Florida Association for China Unification, part
of a global network of organizations aimed at promoting the return of
Taiwan to mainland control, a connection first reported by Mother Jones.
Such groups fall under the oversight of the Chinese Communist Party’s
United Front Work Department, which seeks to enlist the vast ethnic
Chinese diaspora to promote Beijing’s policies.
Li Qiangmin, the Chinese consul general in Houston, attended the Florida
group’s opening ceremony, timed just before Taiwan’s president made a
stopover in Miami. Ms. Yang served as a vice president of the
association, according to a former officer in the group who asked to
remain anonymous.
The group’s founding president, Qu Xianqin, sat next to the consul
general and seems to be active in politics. She was at Jeb Bush’s
campaign launch in 2015 as well, and appeared on a list of Asian
Americans and Pacific Islanders endorsing President Barack Obama’s
re-election in 2012.
Ms. Yang also joined the Florida branch of the China Association for
Science and Technology, a nongovernmental organization affiliated with
China’s Ministry of Science and Technology, according to James Mulvenon,
an expert on China’s intelligence capabilities.
“It is an organization explicitly designed to facilitate cooperation
with the Chinese government,” Mr. Mulvenon said.
Ms. Yang’s mother, Zhang Guiying, told The Herald, which first reported
Ms. Yang’s appearances at Mar-a-Lago, that there was a simple
explanation for her daughter’s frenzy of political activity: “She likes
to show off.” Reached outside her home in Wellington, Fla., Ms. Zhang
declined to comment to The Times.
It is unclear how much financial success Ms. Yang’s endeavors have
yielded. Her art-promotion company, Fufu International, which is listed
under her mother’s name, filed for bankruptcy last year with more than
$150,000 in credit card debt.
On Wednesday, typed notes were taped to the doors of her beauty school
asking anyone to refrain from contacting her family and friends. One of
the donors to Mr. Trump’s re-election effort with connections to Ms.
Yang was seated at the reception desk at a nail salon next door to the
beauty school.
The contribution from the woman was among the 231 donations in 2017 and
2018 that listed the word “facial” in the occupation description for the
F.E.C. And it was the only one at the maximum $5,400.
“Since I am friends with Cindy, you need to contact that person,” said
the woman, Katrina Eggertsson, referring to Mr. Turk, the lawyer who
signed the note on the doors.
Gong Haizhen, the friend who was arrested in 2014, confirmed by phone
that she had made the $5,400 donation but then hung up. (Court records
show the charge against her was dismissed after she participated in an
intervention program.)
Another of the donors, a massage therapist named Yang Yi, lives north of
Miami and is linked to a home in a gated community that is listed in
public records as belonging to Cindy Yang. It is unclear if they are
related.
In a statement on Thursday, Mr. Turk said his client’s reputation had
been destroyed. “Cindy Yang seems to be another casualty, as a supporter
of our president,” he said.
It is a sentiment echoed by Ms. Lu, her friend of a decade, who wondered
why Ms. Yang had involved herself in politics.
“She’s facing a lot of pressure,” she said. “Things can’t be easy for
her. Perhaps it’s fate.”
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