Far-left Boston Mayor Michelle Wu (D) received hundreds of thousands of dollars to her 2021 campaign from a fundraiser who is a Chinese Communist Party (CCP) intelligence official, an investigation by the Daily Caller News Foundation (DCNF) recently uncovered.
Wu’s mayoral campaign was the recipient of more than $300,000 fundraised by Gary Yu, the commissioner of the Asian American & Pacific Islanders Commission and president of the New England Chinese American Alliance, the DCNF reported.
Yu, whose Chinese name is Yu Guoliang, is listed as an official in the United Front Work Department (UFWD) — the CCP’s intelligence- and influence-gathering agency that operates overseas, including in the U.S.
The DCNF also reported that Yu operates as a recruiter for the Chinese government, citing Chinese state media reports and civic associations led by Yu to back up these claims.
Wu, whose parents immigrated to the U.S. from Taiwan after her grandparents moved the family from mainland China, has recently made headlines for criticizing President Donald Trump for cracking down on illegal immigration in her sanctuary city.
Despite her public assertion that Boston “stand[s] with immigrants,” Trump border czar Tom Homan traveled to the city and personally oversaw hundreds of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) arrests, including members of MS-13 and Tren de Aragua (TdA).
WATCH — “I’m Bringing Hell with Me”: Homan to Anti-ICE Boston Police Commissioner:
“The Communist Party’s UFWD never rests,” China expert Gordon Chang told the DCNF. “There is no ethnic Chinese official in America who is not targeted. It’s time for law enforcement to investigate the CCP’s ties to Gary Yu and Yu’s ties to Mayor Michelle Wu.”
The UFWD also has significant roots in Minnesota, with ties to failed Democrat vice presidential candidate Gov. Tim Walz.
According to the news foundations’ research, Yu has done extensive recruitment for different factions of the Chinese government:
Yu also agreed to headhunt U.S. talent for at least half a dozen Chinese regional governments, including the cities of Hangzhou and Guangzhou, according to Chinese government and ACFROC [All-China Federation Of Returned Overseas Chinese] announcements.
For instance, in November 2019, the CCP announced that Yu agreed to establish an “Overseas Talent Recruitment Work Station” in North America for the party’s Organization Department in Nanning, a city located in the Guangxi Autonomous Region.
The Organization Department oversees China’s malign talent recruitment programs, like the Thousand Talents Plan, which incentivizes participants to “return to China to augment its scientific and military capabilities,” according to the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission.
“Wu’s ultra-leftism makes her the perfect candidate for CCP recruitment and capture,” Chang added. “Or do we have it backward? Is her ultra-leftism the result of CCP recruitment and capture? More than just the people of Boston would like to know.”
Besides fundraising with his positions with multiple Asian American civic organizations, Yu has personally donated $45,515 to different Massachusetts Democrats since 2018, campaign finance records show.
Wu’s campaign was the recipient of $3,200, and Gov. Maura Healey’s (D) campaign got $2,175.
“China’s strategy to influence state and local policymakers is executed, in part, through hundreds of ostensibly ‘civil society’ organizations that are actually affiliated with the CCP’s UFWD,” Michael Lucci, CEO of anti-CCP nonprofit State Armor, told the DCNF.
“Xi Jinping considers United Front work a critical tool to undermine democracies,” he explained. “It involves influence peddling, intelligence collection, and intellectual property theft, all for the end goal of aligning U.S. subnational governments with China’s foreign policy and exploiting weaknesses they find.”
Olivia Rondeau is a politics reporter for Breitbart News based in Washington, D.C. Find her on X/Twitter and Instagram.
