Flashy Cerritos Politician Rebuts China Aid Claim

A relentless self-promoter, Dr. Daniel K. Wong touts himself as a pioneering Chinese American politician seeking to bring China and the United States closer, a physician on a mission to improve health care in both countries and a performer who uses American love songs to teach English to millions of Chinese.

In a slick bilingual calendar replete with photos of Wong greeting Chinese and U.S. leaders, he heralded himself as “a dynamic, innovative man of all seasons with life experiences unmatched. . . .” At times, he has referred to himself as the “Chinese Kissinger.”

But Wong now has found himself in a U.S.-Sino spotlight that he has not sought: He is the sole person cited by congressional investigators as the recipient of a campaign donation from the Chinese government stemming from Beijing’s alleged effort to influence American elections. It is one distinction that he emphatically rejects.

“I am a loyal American,” said Wong, 56, an obstetrician-gynecologist and former mayor of Cerritos. “I am smart enough that I would never ask a foreign government for any money for my campaign.”

Whatever the donation’s origin, the tale of Daniel Kambor Wong illustrates the ways in which Beijing has cultivated Chinese Americans as well as the perils for those who become too closely associated with the regime.

The contribution that has embroiled Wong was made by Sundari Elnitiarta, the wife of Ted Sioeng, a wealthy Indonesian businessman suspected of working on behalf of China in the United States. A Senate investigating committee said Sioeng was partially reimbursed for a 1996 donation to Wong by the Chinese consulate in Los Angeles.

Government sources said an informant overheard Sioeng boasting that a $3,000 check from the consulate to a Hollywood hotel owned by Sioeng’s family was for Wong’s unsuccessful campaign for state Assembly.

Played Role for Chinese Leaders in ’89

Wong, a Republican who actively supported Ronald Reagan, George Bush and Pete Wilson, is one of numerous Chinese American candidates whose contributions from Sioeng and his family remain under scrutiny.

But Wong is unique in that he already had been battered by controversy involving China. In the wake of the bloody suppression of pro-democracy demonstrators at Tiananmen Square in 1989, he played a valuable role for the country’s besieged rulers.

Then a veteran Cerritos councilman, Wong flew to Beijing. He said he wanted to see whether news accounts had exaggerated the bloodshed and to request amnesty for the protesters.

He gained an audience with Premier Li Peng. It was through Wong that Li first offered the rationale that the army used live ammunition because it was not equipped with rubber bullets or high-pressure water hoses to drive back the protesters. The Communist Party-run media, describing Wong as a prominent Chinese American, quoted him as saying: “The government did not want bloodshed; they wanted peace.”

James R. Lilley, the U.S. ambassador in Beijing at the time, recalled that Wong served the government by “presenting the Chinese version of what happened at Tiananmen without critical comment.”

The interview was a turning point for Wong. Since then, he says he has been ostracized by the Chinese community and hurt at the polls, where he lost six bids for public office.

Wong portrays himself as a victim of the animosity between supporters of China and Taiwan. “The anti-mainland China group has put me on the blacklist,” he said, suggesting that reports about the Sioeng donation have been fueled by such forces.

Sioeng’s lawyers and the Chinese consulate deny that China channeled any money to Wong. The attorneys insist that Sioeng has at no time worked on behalf of the Chinese government.

In some respects, Wong appears an unlikely candidate for China to use to expand its U.S. influence. He was running for the state Assembly, not Congress. And he was seeking the GOP nomination in a highly competitive district for the third time after two failed bids.

(Senate Republican investigators offer a possible explanation. The Government Affairs Committee reported that a Chinese official devised “a seeding strategy” to encourage Chinese Americans to run for state and local elections to develop “viable candidates sympathetic to [China] for future federal elections.”)

Then there is the flamboyance of Wong, who is married and the father of two grown children.

His 1995 calendar shows him bare-chested, a gun tucked into his waistband, under the words “Promote Peace Not Violence,” which he said was for shock effect. During an Assembly campaign he advocated castrating rapists. He listed himself on a ballot as Daniel “Boone” Wong--which he said was to get attention.

Wong showed up for a recent interview in black boots with 2-inch heels, a diamond-studded Raymond Weil watch, a large diamond ring and a gold bracelet. He appears in videos crooning love songs with female partners.

His flashy style turns off many in the Chinese American community. “A lot of this has to do with his personality and the way he carries himself,” said a longtime Chinese American political activist who requested anonymity.

But a former associate who has traveled with Wong in China said: “China needs all the friends it can find; it cannot afford to alienate anyone.”

Calls Himself Child of China and America

Wong says he views China as his biological mother and America as the mother who raised him.

His family is from Guangdong province, but he was born and grew up in Hong Kong. His father, who had come to the United States and served in the U.S. Army, died when Wong was 5.

After moving to Los Angeles at 18, Wong worked as a busboy and bartender to put himself through college before attending the University of Utah Medical School. He settled in Cerritos in 1970 and began practicing medicine.

His first civic involvement was teaching free classes in cardiopulmonary resuscitation. He also became a reservist in the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, where he provided emergency medical training.

In 1978, he was elected to the Cerritos City Council. As one of the few Chinese American elected officials, he caught the eye of Taiwan’s leaders. He was repeatedly invited to visit the island nation, where he was wined and dined by senior government officials.

Wong also became active in Republican campaigns. In 1980, he headed Asian Americans for Reagan in California.

In 1983, Wong’s City Council colleagues chose him as mayor. By then, he had found his baritone singing voice and had begun to make amateur appearances in restaurant lounges.

Wong said he had resisted requests to visit Communist China. But, filled with ethnic pride over the country’s impressive showing during the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles, he attended a reception for the team and accepted an invitation to the mainland.

He then began to make regular visits. As a mayor, he received VIP treatment. As a singer, he was asked to perform in concert halls and on television.

Back home, Wong started a Chinese-language show on cable television, focusing on medicine, politics and events in China. The invitations from Taiwan ended. But, Wong said, in China he was celebrated as “the singing mayor.”

“I was an example of someone who had made it in the U.S.,” he said. “A doctor who delivers babies. A mayor. A mayor who can sing. I was treated like a king.”

He said he was welcomed into China following Tiananmen Square because “the leaders trust me and endorse what I do.”

Wong was stung by the criticism that he served as a mouthpiece for China. He said news accounts unfairly implied that he endorsed Premier Li’s views--costing him friends, advertisers for his television show and political support.

Forced by term limits in 1992 to leave the City Council, Wong set his sights on the Assembly.

Around this time, he ran into Ted Sioeng in Yunnan, China’s tobacco center. Wong had gone there to introduce a business associate to government officials who could assist him with cigarette exporting. He said Sioeng, who had a lucrative tobacco export deal, confronted Wong’s associate about poaching on his turf.

Sioeng encouraged Wong to pursue his political career. “He appreciated what I did in the Chinese community and the American cities and [said] if I wanted to go for higher office, he could help me a lot,” Wong recalled. “I said my goal was one day to run for higher office like Congress.”

But in 1992, Wong received no assistance from Sioeng and was soundly defeated in the Republican primary for the Assembly.

Wong said he urged Sioeng to become more active in the Chinese American community in Southern California, where he had civic and business ventures including a Pro-Beijing Chinese-language newspaper in Monterey Park.

In 1994, Wong was again trounced in the GOP Assembly primary. His modest financial support included a $1,000 contribution from Sioeng’s wife, records show.

A year later, Wong sang at the wedding of one of Sioeng’s daughters. And community activists say Sioeng and Wong developed a mutually beneficial relationship.

When Sioeng hosted a delegation of Chinese officials, Wong would bring his camera crew and interview the visitors, making them feel important, said a former associate. Sioeng’s guests would then receive a souvenir videotape of themselves on American television. Sioeng advertised on Wong’s show.

Running for the Assembly in 1996, Wong said he reminded Sioeng of his promised financial backing. He received a $5,000 check from Sioeng’s wife on Feb. 15. Still, vastly outspent, Wong lost the primary.

$3,000 Check From Chinese Consulate

Earlier this year, the U.S. Senate investigating committee reported that a $3,000 check from the Los Angeles consulate dated March 22, 1996, was provided to the Sioeng family’s Metropolitan Hotel in Hollywood “for the purpose of making or reimbursing a political contribution to Dr. Daniel Wong.”

Wong said he believes the money was from Sioeng, who was not a legal resident and could not contribute.Even if the money did come from China, “all I can say is I’m innocent.”

Sioeng’s attorneys deny the allegation, saying the donation came from Sioeng’s wife, a legal resident, and the $3,000 from the consulate was to defray the costs of a Chinese television crew that stayed at the hotel in early 1996. They made copies of the billing records available to The Times.

Spokesman Han Tao said the allegations against the Chinese consulate are “sheer nonsense.”

“In its relations with other countries, China . . . strictly abided by the principle of non-interference in their internal affairs,” he said.

Sioeng’s family also donated $250,000 to the Democratic National Committee. The contributions were made by Sioeng’s daughter, Jessica Elnitiarta, a legal resident, and one of her Los Angeles businesses.

After Wong’s name first appeared in news accounts in late 1996, he saw Sioeng in China. He said Sioeng--who has remained abroad--told him: “Sorry to drag you into this, [but] you know how that is. That’s how the people try to get you and me.”

In a telephone interview from China, where he is introducing a video of his songs and producing a kung fu and aerobics exercise video, Wong remains a celebrity of sorts. He says his government-approved biography, written by a Chinese author, will soon be published.

“I’d like my gravestone to say that I had a good life,” he said. “I reached my own destiny. ‘Sorry fellows, I didn’t live up to your expectations.’ ”

Miller reported from Washington and Kang from Los Angeles. Staff researcher Janet Lundblad in Los Angeles contributed to this story.

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Profile: Daniel K. Wong

Wong has been named by congressional investigators as the recipient of a campaign donation that allegedly was part of a Chinese government effort to influence American elections. Wong, a former Cerritos mayor who was a Republican Assembly candidate at the time, denies the allegation. He has had close ties to China, including a much-criticized interview with Premier Li Peng in the wake of the Tiananmen Square crackdown in 1989.

* Born: July 8, 1941, in Hong Kong

* Residence: Cerritos

* Education: Associate in arts degree at Los Angeles City College; bachelor’s in pharmacy at the University of Utah; medical degree from the University of Utah Medical School.

* Career highlights: Obstetrician-gynecologist since 1971; Cerritos City Council member for 14 years, including two terms as mayor; reserve deputy with the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department for 24 years, until 1996; television variety show host. He has lost six election campaigns since leaving the City Council in 1992. He has also given numerous concerts in China, performing songs in English and Chinese.

* Interests: Politics, singing, encouraging closer relations between U.S. and China, and improving health and fitness in both countries.

* Family: Married for 34 years; two grown children.

* Quote: “I reached my own destiny.”