Chinese President Xi Jinping has a friend in Huang Ping.
Chinese President Xi Jinping has a friend in Huang Ping.
A Chinese official who previously praised the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) as "great" celebrated the Lunar New Year with several top New York Democrats on Sunday.
Sen. Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, Gov. Kathy Hochul, New York City Mayor Eric Adams, Manhattan Assembly Member Grace Lee and Manhattan Borough President Mark D. Levine stood beside Huang Ping, the consul general of China’s New York Consulate, during the Lunar New Year Parade in Manhattan.
"So delighted to join the NYC Lunar New Year Celebration Parade Festival together with @SenSchumer @GovKathyHochul @graceleefornyc @NYCMayor @MBPMarkLevine and many other American friends and Chinese compatriots," Huang wrote on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, on Sunday. "Wish everyone a healthy and prosperous Year of Dragon!"
In a speech to the crowd, Schumer said, "I am proud to say that I am a fighter to get comprehensive immigration reform to allow many more Chinese to come to America," National Review reported.
Other remarks reportedly included bridging the gap between American and Chinese communities and combating prejudice against Asians.
After China's national anthem blared across Manhattan, Schumer waved the flag of the People's Republic of China, according to National Review.
Huang previously called the CCP a "great party" and has denied that China is targeting the Muslim Uyghur population in China.
"There are lots of lies here, fabricated by some people with their own political agenda," Huang said in an August 2021 interview, denying the existence of genocide and internment camps targeting Uyghurs. "As I said, there's no genocide, not a single evidence to prove that there's a genocide or something there. It's just a slandering."
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In addition to praising the CCP, Huang has repeatedly promoted CCP talking points on social media and appears to amplify the agenda of Chinese President Xi Jinping.
Counsel General of the People’s Republic of China Huang Ping is shown at a Columbia University event. (General of the People’s Republic of China )
"Sharing the stage with a known purveyor of CCP propaganda is unwise, and that’s putting it kindly," Michael Sobolik, a senior fellow at the American Foreign Policy Council, told Fox News Digital. "Sen. Schumer, Gov. Hochul and Mayor Adams should have known that Huang Ping has used official social media accounts to deny the CCP’s genocide of Uyghurs, push CCP disinformation about Taiwan and whitewash Beijing’s oppression of Tibet."
"Their elevation of the consul general raises serious questions about their judgment and the degree of malign influence the CCP wields in New York City," Sobolik said.
Huang has met with New York's elected officials several times in the past. Last year, he stood beside Adams at the New York China Day Celebration Parade Festival. And Fox News Digital previously reported that Hochul and Huang met in April 2019 when she was the lieutenant governor to discuss cooperation between New York and China.
Earlier this year, Huang delivered the keynote speech at the China-U.S. Business Alliance 2024 New Year event.
"Let's work together for more practical cooperation and mutual interest for the two peoples," he wrote on X last month.
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Calls placed to the offices of Hochul, Adams, Schumer, Lee and Levine were not returned.
Fox News' Andrew Mark Miller and Cameron Cawthorne contributed to this report.
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