Johnny Chien Chuen Chung (鍾育瀚; pinyin: Zhōng Yùhàn) (born 1955) [1] was a major figure in the 1996 United States campaign finance controversy.
Hanyu Pinyin, often abbreviated to pinyin, is the official romanization system for Standard Chinese in mainland China and to some extent in Taiwan. It is often used to teach Standard Mandarin Chinese, which is normally written using Chinese characters. The system includes four diacritics denoting tones. Pinyin without tone marks is used to spell Chinese names and words in languages written with the Latin alphabet, and also in certain computer input methods to enter Chinese characters.
The 1996 United States campaign finance controversy was an alleged effort by the People's Republic of China to influence domestic American politics prior to and during the Clinton administration and also involved the fund-raising practices of the administration itself.
Born in Taiwan, Chung was the owner of a "blastfaxing" business (an automated system that quickly sends out faxes to thousands of businesses) in California, United States in the early 1990s. Chung eventually found himself in the middle of the Washington, D.C. elite within a couple weeks of his first donations to the Democratic Party. [2] [3] Between 1994 and 1996, Chung donated $366,000 to the Democratic National Committee. Eventually, all of the money was returned. Chung told federal investigators that $35,000 of the money he donated came from China's military intelligence. [4]
Junk faxes are a form of telemarketing where unsolicited advertisements are sent via fax transmission. Junk faxes are the faxed equivalent of spam or junk mail. Proponents of this advertising medium often use the terms broadcast fax or fax advertising to avoid the negative connotation of the term junk fax. Junk faxes are generally considered to be a nuisance since they waste toner, ink and paper in fax machines.
California is a state in the Pacific Region of the United States. With 39.6 million residents, California is the most populous U.S. state and the third-largest by area. The state capital is Sacramento. The Greater Los Angeles Area and the San Francisco Bay Area are the nation's second and fifth most populous urban regions, with 18.7 million and 9.7 million residents respectively. Los Angeles is California's most populous city, and the country's second most populous, after New York City. California also has the nation's most populous county, Los Angeles County, and its largest county by area, San Bernardino County. The City and County of San Francisco is both the country's second-most densely populated major city after New York City and the fifth-most densely populated county, behind only four of the five New York City boroughs.
The United States of America (USA), commonly known as the United States or America, is a country composed of 50 states, a federal district, five major self-governing territories, and various possessions. At 3.8 million square miles, the United States is the world's third or fourth largest country by total area and is slightly smaller than the entire continent of Europe's 3.9 million square miles. With a population of over 327 million people, the U.S. is the third most populous country. The capital is Washington, D.C., and the largest city by population is New York City. Forty-eight states and the capital's federal district are contiguous in North America between Canada and Mexico. The State of Alaska is in the northwest corner of North America, bordered by Canada to the east and across the Bering Strait from Russia to the west. The State of Hawaii is an archipelago in the mid-Pacific Ocean. The U.S. territories are scattered about the Pacific Ocean and the Caribbean Sea, stretching across nine official time zones. The extremely diverse geography, climate, and wildlife of the United States make it one of the world's 17 megadiverse countries.
Called a "hustler" by a U.S. National Security Council (NSC) aide Robert Suettinger, [4] Chung befriended former Lt. Col. Liu Chaoying during a Commerce Department trade mission to China.
The White House National Security Council (NSC) is the principal forum used by the President of the United States for consideration of national security, military matters, and foreign policy matters with senior national security advisors and Cabinet officials and is part of the Executive Office of the President of the United States. Since its inception under Harry S. Truman, the function of the Council has been to advise and assist the President on national security and foreign policies. The Council also serves as the President's principal arm for coordinating these policies among various government agencies. The Council has counterparts in the national security councils of many other nations.
Robert Suettinger was United States President Bill Clinton's national intelligence officer for East Asia at the National Intelligence Council (NIC) from 1997-1998. While there, Suettinger oversaw the preparation of national intelligence estimates for the director of the Central Intelligence Agency. His areas of specialty included the People's Republic of China and the North Korean nuclear weapons program. After working in the Clinton administration, Suettinger has been a senior analyst for the Brookings Institution where he wrote the book Beyond Tiananmen – The Politics of U.S.-China Relations, 1989-2000. He also is a senior advisor at The Stimson Center.
Liu Chaoying (劉超英), or Helen Liu, was an executive at China Aerospace International Holdings which is the Hong Kong subsidiary of China's premier satellite developer, China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (中國航天科技集團公司). She was a Lt. Col. in the People's Liberation Army (PLA) of China. Liu is the daughter of former PLA General Liu Huaqing. She was a major figure in the 1996 United States campaign finance controversy.
In a July 20th 1997 Chicago Tribune article Johnny Chung was quoted as saying, "I see the White House is like a subway: You have to put in coins to open the gates."
Chung later testified under oath to the U.S. House Committee in May 1999 that he was introduced to Chinese Gen. Ji Shengde, then head of Chinese military intelligence, by Liu Chaoying. Chung said that Ji told him: "We like your president very much. We would like to see him reelect [ sic ]. I will give you 300,000 U.S. dollars. You can give it to the president and the Democrat [ sic ] Party." [5] Both Liu and the Chinese government denied the claims. [6]
The United States House of Representatives is the lower chamber of the United States Congress, the Senate being the upper chamber. Together they compose the legislature of the United States.
Ji Shengde is a former major-general in charge of military intelligence in the People's Liberation Army of China. In June 1999 he was removed from his post after being implicated in the Lai Changxing smuggling scandal centered on the Fujian port of Xiamen. In 2000 Ji was sentenced to death with a two-year reprieve, but the sentence was later reduced to 20 years in jail.
The Latin adverb sic inserted after a quoted word or passage indicates that the quoted matter has been transcribed or translated exactly as found in the source text, complete with any erroneous, archaic, or otherwise nonstandard spelling. It also applies to any surprising assertion, faulty reasoning, or other matter that might be likely interpreted as an error of transcription.
Chung was eventually convicted of bank fraud, tax evasion, and two misdemeanor counts of conspiring to violate election law. [7] On December 14, 1998, Johnny Chung was sentenced to probation and 3,000 hours.
