GOP Got Asian Bailout, Magazine Says

A Hong Kong businessman helped the Republican Party get money it needed to take over Congress in 1994, and again before crucial elections in 1996.

The bailout, reported in Time magazine, could draw congressional investigators’ attention to Republicans, who have attacked the White House and Democratic National Committee for alleged foreign money connections.

Ambrous Tung Young, who has served as the Asian agent for Western aviation companies seeking to sell planes in China and Taiwan, put up $2.2 million in collateral so a GOP think tank could get a bank loan to pay back money it owed to the party.

The American arm of Young’s Hong Kong company--Young Bros. Development-USA--guaranteed a loan from Signet Bank to the National Policy Forum on the eve of the pivotal 1994 elections, according to the May 5 edition of Time, due out on newsstands Monday.

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The forum, a think tank founded by then-Republican National Committee Chairman Haley Barbour in 1993, borrowed its start-up money from the RNC. Young’s loan guarantee ensured the money was paid back in time for the committee to make a last-minute TV advertising push that helped win control of Congress in November 1994.

Two years later, in the last weeks of the 1996 election season, the GOP let the forum default on $1 million still owed to Signet rather than divert money from congressional campaigns. Young threatened to sue and won a $500,000 settlement from Republicans.

The Senate committee investigating campaign fund-raising has subpoenaed records relating to the National Policy Forum.

Barbour told Time the loan guarantee and settlement with Young were “perfectly legal and appropriate.”

Barbour, now in private practice, could not be reached Saturday to discuss the matter.

Young Bros. is incorporated in Florida under the names of two officers: former GOP Chairman Richard Richards and Benton Becker, who was counsel to President Gerald R. Ford.

The company’s only U.S. asset is an apartment it owns in Washington and its only income is rent from that property, Time reports.

Becker told Time the principal stockholder is Young Bros. Development of Hong Kong.

The company, an aviation services and real estate investment firm, relies on Western access to Chinese markets and a secure Taiwan--both aims that have been supported by the Republican Congress.

After the 1994 elections, Barbour showed Young around Washington, introducing him to then-Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole and House Speaker Newt Gingrich.

It is unclear how the businessman, who was reared in Taiwan and known as “the man to see” for access to Asian aerospace markets, came to offer financial help to the GOP, but Time reports Young has two sons who are U.S. citizens and dabble in Republican politics.