IMF Account’s China Ties Probed

Congressional investigators searching for possible conduits of Chinese money into the 1996 Democratic campaign are focusing on Keshi Zhan, a woman once described by Democratic fund-raiser Yah Lin “Charlie” Trie as his social secretary.

In a confidential report to members of a House panel probing fund-raising abuses, committee staff investigators cited documents Wednesday showing that Zhan held a joint bank account at the International Monetary Fund here with Trie and Shao Zhengkang, a senior executive of a corporation owned by the Chinese State Council, the government’s highest administrative body.

Zhan also had signatory authority over funds held by Ng Lap Seng, a Macao-based business partner of Trie’s, that were used to make political contributions to the Democratic National Committee, investigators say.

The latest findings provide circumstantial evidence, but no conclusive proof, that the Chinese government sought to influence U.S. policy through political donations. The financial network has been difficult to untangle, investigators say.

Trie Pleads Not Guilty

Trie, who was indicted earlier this year on 15 counts of election-law violations and other felonies, has pleaded not guilty and faces trial in October. Senate investigators, who traced at least $1 million wired to Trie from Asian banks, have suspected he was an agent of alleged efforts by China to influence the 1996 U.S. elections.

Trie channeled more than $1.2 million to the DNC and to President Clinton’s legal defense fund, all of which was returned on the suspicion it was foreign-tainted. The Taiwan-born Trie, a naturalized citizen, is a former Little Rock, Ark., restaurateur who befriended Clinton while he was governor.

Reid Weingarten, Trie’s defense attorney, says Trie “never served as a spy for a foreign country [and] never intended to corrupt the American political system.”

Zhan, who gave a still-sealed deposition last year to Senate investigators, reportedly also has denied any involvement with Chinese government plans to influence the election. House investigators have not yet obtained a formal interview with her.

The somewhat mysterious woman, who is in her late 30s, maintains an apartment in suburban Virginia but has influential family connections in China, according to House investigators. Both her parents are leading figures in Chinese government and intellectual circles.

Her mother, Ying Qun Ma, is a retired senior Chinese government official and her father, Fan Zhan, has been a professor of Russian linguistics at prestigious Beijing University.

Immunity Bid Thwarted

Zhan is one of four witnesses for whom committee Chairman Dan Burton (R-Ind.) sought limited immunity from prosecution in return for testimony. But Democrats on the panel, unhappy with how Burton has run the investigation, blocked the move.

House investigators report that a deposit of $12,500 was made into the joint Trie-Zhan-Shao account at the IMF in February 1996. The money came from a joint account held by Trie and Ng at a Washington bank. The same day, Zhan made a $12,500 contribution to the DNC with funds from the IMF account.

Although Zhan has claimed the money was her own, she is a single mother who earns an annual salary of $22,408 as a municipal employee in Arlington, Va.

Shao, the co-signatory on a bank account with Zhan and Trie, is a high-ranking officer of China Everbright in Hong Kong and Beijing, which is wholly owned by the Chinese State Council, investigators have found. The council is chaired by President Jiang Zemin and includes Premier Li Peng.

Subpoenaed records show Zhan shared another joint account on behalf of Trie with Shao and Su Yonghi, a former Chinese Embassy attache in Washington.

The Chinese government has strongly denied it sought to influence the 1996 presidential and congressional election campaigns. Burton, however, is calling for specific action.

“We need to have cooperation from the Chinese government,” he said in a statement Wednesday.

“They have refused to issue visas to our investigators or produce bank records that could explain the source of money that seems to have penetrated our political process.”