Chinese National Sentenced in US for Plot to Coerce Former Official to Return to China

January 23, 2025 TruthUSA

The man is the second individual to be sentenced this month for involvement in China’s pressure campaign targeting expatriates, known as ‘Operation Fox Hunt.’

A Chinese national was sentenced to 16 months in prison on Jan. 22 for being involved in a Beijing-directed campaign trying to pressure a former Chinese official living in New Jersey to return to China.

Zheng Congying, a lawful permanent U.S. resident, was one of three individuals indicted by a federal court jury in Brooklyn in June 2023 for their various roles in the pressure campaign targeting Xu Jin and his family.

Zheng’s codefendant, Zhu Yong, a Chinese retiree, was sentenced to two years in prison on Jan. 15. Another codefendant, Michael McMahon, a retired New York Police Department sergeant-turned-private investigator, is scheduled to be sentenced later this winter.

On Wednesday, Judge Pamela Chen of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York handed down the 16-month sentence against Zheng, who was convicted of stalking and stalking conspiracy. Zheng is scheduled to turn himself in for his prison term on April 22.

In September 2018, Zheng went to Xu’s home in New Jersey, knocked on the doors, and circled the house to peer inside, court documents state. Before leaving, Zheng taped a note on the door in Chinese, that translates to: “If you are willing to go back to the mainland and spend 10 years in prison, your wife and children will be all right. That’s the end of this matter!”

The case reveals an effort related to China’s “Operation Fox Hunt,” which the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) launched in 2014 to carry out what U.S. officials call transnational repression. In 2020, then-FBI Director Christopher Wray said that CCP leader Xi Jinping was using Operation Fox Hunt to target individuals who “are viewed as threats to the [Chinese] regime” around the world.

Xu, a former official from Wuhan city in central China, faces accusations of bribery from Chinese authorities, which he denies.

Zheng’s attorney, Paul Goldberger, said in court that Zheng expressed regret for his actions and attempted to remove the note. However, prosecutors argued that Zheng instead had returned to Xu’s home to check whether the note had been received.

The three defendants didn’t testify, and their attorneys said their clients believed they were helping a private company or individuals, not Chinese regime authorities.

According to a court document, prosecutors initially sought a prison sentence of 33 months for Zheng.

Prosecutors said Xu and his wife, Liu Fang, were home when Zheng posted the note, and the couple was watching from their security camera system.

“As a result of the note delivered by the defendant, Xu Jin explained that he felt that for the first time, the threats made to him by the PRC government were no longer ‘mental’ but ‘physical,’ and he became ‘very worried about [the] safety of his wife and daughter,” the prosecutors wrote, using the acronym of communist China’s official name, the People’s Republic of China.

The prosecutors also explained that China has been using Operation Fox Hunt and its related program called Sky Net to pressure and harass its targets’ family members in China, to instill fear that refusal to return would put their loved ones in danger.

According to prosecutors, Chinese officials forced Xu’s father to travel to the United States in 2017 so that he could warn his son in person that his refusal to return to China could result in the imprisonment of Xu’s sister.

Spain-based human rights group Safeguard Defenders said in a 2024 report that China had successfully returned home more than 12,000 people via Fox Hunt and Sky Net from 2013 to 2023.

Three other individuals have pleaded guilty in the case. Meanwhile, five others were charged but are presumed to have fled to China as they did not appear in court.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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