CBS News reports on another troubling foreign donation to the Clinton Foundation:
That contract is a direct tie to the Chinese government, according to Jim Mann, who has written several books on China’s relationship with the U.S. With “embassy construction, one of the most important tasks is making sure that there are no bugs there,” he said. “So you want to have the closest security and intelligence connections with and approval of the person or company that’s going to build your embassy.”
The tie to the Chinese government is troubling enough, but the CBS News report doesn’t elaborate upon the firm’s ties to North Korea. The port owned by Rilin in Dandong, China has long been suspected of helping North Korea evade western sanctions. Not three days ago, the Washington Post published this report on it:
Operated by North Koreans, the factories produce clothes and other goods that are exported under foreign-company labels, making it impossible to tell that they have been made with North Korean hands and have contributed to North Korean profits. …
A lot of that growth comes through Dandong, a hive of North Korean and Chinese managers and traders, with middlemen helping them all cover their tracks. One local Chinese businessman estimates that one-quarter of this city’s population of 800,000 is involved in doing business with North Korea in some way.
And according to the Telegraph, Dandong “is Pyongyang’s only major link to the outside world. Full of smugglers, spies and military officers it often feels as if the normal rules do not apply in this shady border town. Around 70 per cent of the £4 billion of annual trade between North Korea and China flows through the city, and there is, perhaps, another £6.5 billion of black-market trade.” It’s not just the Clinton Foundation, either. Per this New Republic report last fall, Rilin Enterprises has been buying influence at other foreign policy think tanks in D.C. And Wang Wenliang, the former Dandong municipal official and billionaire owner of Rilin, also sits on the board of trustees at NYU and has donated $25 million to the school.
