How Big Clinton Contributor Turned Into Freelance Envoy

In Washington, a city where money can, indeed, buy friends, Johnny Chien Chuen Chung was a very popular man in the summer of 1995. The Taiwan-born California businessman had already contributed more than $250,000 to the coffers of the Democratic National Committee, where his many friends commonly referred to him simply as “Johnny.” Now he wanted a favor.

Troubled by the recent arrest in China of political dissident Harry Wu, a Chinese American, Chung sought a chance to talk to the president. And thanks to DNC intervention, Chung says, he was a last-minute addition to the guest list of an early July presidential reception otherwise restricted to heads of the 50 state Democratic party organizations.

There, waiting for his turn to be photographed with President Clinton, Chung says he “prayed for the words to say.” Finally, hearing his name called, the 42-year-old entrepreneur stepped forward to greet the president, face the camera and blurt out his support for Wu along with his intention to use his own contacts in China to press for Wu’s release. Clinton, the White House later acknowledged, “was supportive.” Chung recalls it more vividly.

“Tell them they have no right to arrest U.S. citizens,” he said Clinton told him with unexpected passion, jabbing the air with his finger. “We have enough problems between our two countries. We don’t need any more.” And as Chung stepped away, he said, Clinton called him back, pointing a finger at Chung’s heart and repeating: “Johnny--tell them.”

Thus was launched what may be one of the stranger odysseys in the annals of recent American diplomacy. An amateur ambassador, convinced he was on a mission for the president, hit the road to Beijing. A few days later, armed with letters from the DNC and pictures of Clinton shaking his hand, Chung was knocking on the doors of China’s Foreign Ministry.

While no evidence ties Wu’s subsequent release to Chung’s freelance diplomacy--and Chung himself makes no such claims--the story of how a controversial political donor could end up engaged in so sensitive a foreign policy arena raises a host of troubling questions.

But Chung, in his first interview since the donation controversy erupted last year, defended conduct that he considered an act of loyalty and duty. Suspicions that his motives were financial or self-serving clearly pain him.

“I do this because I am, like Mr. Wu, Chinese American,” he said.

Adds Chung’s attorney, Brian A. Sun of Santa Monica: “Keep in mind that what my client did was go to China and pressure his business associates to help him help a man [Harry Wu] who the Chinese government considers a traitor. If you think that’s how you improve your business prospects in China, you’re crazy.”

Today, Chung is the target of congressional investigators trying to learn how the founder of a struggling fax distribution business in Torrance--who by his own admission was broke as recently as 1992--could emerge virtually overnight as one of the Democratic Party’s biggest single contributors. Amid questions about the origins of Chung’s political largess, the DNC now says it will return all of the $366,000 that Chung had contributed between 1994 and 1996.

Attorney Sun defends those donations as legal and proper. “We were not the conduit for any foreign contributions,” he said. Meanwhile, Chung is shaken by the raging controversy that has consumed whatever political goodwill his financial generosity sought to engender. An administration spokesman recently declared that Chung, who has been a guest at the Clinton White House at least 49 times, was no longer welcome. Recipients of his donations now dismiss him as “the Fax Man.”

His deepest wounds, however, appear to come from the virtually universal scorn and ridicule that greeted initial disclosures that he had traveled to China on Wu’s behalf. Wu himself dismissed Chung as a self-promoter who had no part in his release.

“When I read Mr. Wu say I try to use him to help my business . . . “ Chung stopped in mid-sentence to shake his head. “That night, for first time in my life, in front of my family, I cry. I cry.”

But a detailed account of Chung’s so-called Wu mission--based on interviews with the businessman and others familiar with his trip, as well as new documents reviewed by The Times--shows that while international figures, congressional leaders and professional diplomats were lobbying China to free Harry Wu, so was the Fax Man.

Chung, VIPs View Radio Address

The seeds of Johnny Chung’s summer Wu mission were sown in the Oval Office on March 11, 1995. Chung squired a delegation of Chinese business VIPs to witness President Clinton taping his weekly radio address. Access had been arranged the night before by the Democratic National Committee.

“I believe the purpose of government is to expand opportunity, not bureaucracy, to empower people through education to make the most of their lives, and to enhance our security on the streets and around the world,” Clinton told the country and his live Chinese audience that morning.

“I believe in a government that is limited but effective, lean but not mean, not a savior but not on the sidelines, a partner in the fight for the future.”

When he was finished, Clinton greeted his guests. The Chinese delegation presented the president with a jade carving. Five days later, Chung presented the DNC with a check for $50,000.

Among the Chinese delegation was Yan Sanzhong of Beijing, vice president of giant China Petro-Chemical Corp. He posed for a picture with Clinton. So did James J. Sun, a young entrepreneur from remote Urumqi. Both would play supporting roles in Chung’s future Wu adventures.

Chung concedes he had never heard of Harry Wu before the dissident’s arrest in June 1995. In fact, Chung recalled that he knew nothing about Wu or his arrest until the day he received a telephone call from Urumqi, the capital of a frontier province in northwestern China where Wu was accused of illegally crossing the border.

The call was from veteran American diplomat Charles Parish, an official in America’s Beijing embassy who had been dispatched to Urumqi on a mission that would prove fruitless in finding Wu. Chung said he called because he knew the Californian had contacts in that area.

Parish, who described himself in a telephone interview as “a good friend of Johnny’s,” said all he could remember was that he was reaching out to hear some familiar voices. “I called home to my parents too,” he said.

According to Chung, he relayed a message to James Sun, the young entrepreneur he took to the White House, who, in turn, arranged for fruit and flowers to be delivered to Parish’s hotel. Later, the Urumqi businessman complained to Chung that his request had gotten the young man into hot water with local authorities and that he found himself under police surveillance.

Back in the U.S., meanwhile, Wu’s friends and family began to mount a campaign to generate public outrage over the dissident’s detention. Wu’s wife, Ching Lee Chen, walked the halls of Congress where she pleaded for public support and pinned yellow ribbons on congressional leaders.

Chung said he watched Ching Lee Chen on CNN and felt her pain. That was the moment, he insists, when he determined to do his part to help free her husband. It was the image of Wu’s wife that drove Chung to the White House.

One of the first people to hear Chung’s scheme to save Wu was then-chairman of the California State Democratic Party, Bill Press. Today, Press dismisses the idea as “a silly effort” that he never considered seriously.

“I was to be his partner in this daring rescue, and I humored him,” Press recalled in a telephone interview. “He promoted himself as the only man who could save Harry Wu--which was b------t.”

Press attended the same White House reception where Chung says Clinton encouraged him during his photo-moment to go to China on Wu’s behalf. And after the reception, Press joined Chung at a hotel bar near the Chinese Embassy in Washington, where Chung says he first announced to a Chinese government official his wish to meet in Beijing with someone of authority on the Wu matter.

“It was a bizarre sort of meeting,” Press recalled. “All the Chinese Embassy guy wanted to do was berate the U.S. for letting the president of Taiwan visit some weeks earlier. I don’t remember if Wu’s name came up that night or not.”

One thing is clear. Immediately following the presidential reception, Chung did take steps to launch his own private China campaign. He asked for a letter of introduction from Clinton. That was politely denied, but the DNC provided a letter signed by chairman Donald L. Fowler, commending Chung for efforts “to build a bridge between the people of China and the United States.”

In a separate and previously undisclosed letter obtained by The Times, Fowler also seemed to more directly endorse Chung’s efforts when he wrote: “Please let me know about your efforts to gain the release of Harry Wu.”

Friends of Wu, who still regard Chung’s efforts as self-serving, find all this amazing. Jeff Feidler, an AFL-CIO executive who acted as a spokesman for the Wu family, contends that the DNC was “handing out half-assed credentials” that could have complicated already delicate negotiations to free Wu.

That last letter from Fowler was dated July 24, 1995. On July 29 Chung’s passport was stamped at Beijing airport. America’s unlikely ambassador had arrived.

Departure for China Called ‘Troubling’

Apparently, it was Chung’s departure for China that awoke a number of people to the realization that he was serious about helping Wu. A National Security Council official called it “very troubling” that Chung would involve himself in “this diplomatically difficult and high-stakes issue.”

In a memo to the national security advisor, NSC aide Robert L. Suettinger noted that while Chung might not normally be able to make much of an impact on U.S.-China relations, “he could conceivably do damage” in the Wu case--”depending on what he says and how much credibility he carries with Beijing.”

As it turned out, Chung’s credibility in China was probably at its apex in the summer of 1995, thanks in great measure to how many times President Clinton had posed for photographs with Chinese business and political figures under Chung’s wing.

“In China, anyone who can put you in the company of the president is a man of enormous power and importance,” said Chung’s attorney, Sun. “Johnny wasn’t just another Chinese American businessman. You’ve got to understand--whatever Americans think of him, he had enormous cachet in China.”

Chung called on the vice president of China Petro-Chemical Corp., whom he had introduced to Clinton the previous March. The vice president got him in to see the corporation’s president. Here, as at every other encounter, Chung was questioned about why he was interested in a traitor. Chung pressed the business figures to honor their debt to him.

Chung’s goal: an audience with the president of China.

On Aug. 16, Chung was summoned to another meeting with the president of China Petro-Chemical Corp. The executive had exchanged letters with his contacts in the government. Chung was to be ready for a lunch appointment the following Friday.

On Friday, Aug. 18, a car provided by the petrochemical firm picked up Chung at his hotel. Chinese officials dispute much of Chung’s account from this point on. According to Chung, during the 30-minute drive to the Diaoyutai government guest house complex, an aide to the corporation executives disclosed for the first time that Chung would be meeting one of the highest-ranking officials of the Chinese Foreign Ministry--Vice Minister Liu Hua-Qiu. He wasn’t the president of China, but Liu was one of Beijing’s most important officials dealing with U.S.-China relations.

Chung said his car arrived at Building 12 at precisely 11:30 a.m. The corporate aide made the introductions and disappeared. Chung exchanged business cards with the vice minister and with a foreign ministry deputy who accompanied the official. Chung’s attorney provided photocopies of those business cards to The Times.

Around the time of Chung’s purported meeting with high-level Chinese officials, there was a steady flow of messages arriving at the foreign ministry from Washington urging Wu’s release. Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) met with Beijing officials. Former Secretaries of State Henry A. Kissinger and Alexander M. Haig Jr. passed private messages during a trip to China.

Chung waited for an appropriate silence to lean over his lunch and ask:

“Am I safe here?”

Of course, the officials assured him.

“There are so many Chinese Americans like me doing business here. If China arrests others, I feel I am not safe in your country,” Chung said he told them.

“You have no right to arrest American citizens. Our countries have enough problems,” he said he told, without attributing the words to Clinton. “I never say I speak for President Clinton. I speak for myself. For Chinese Americans.”

Chung said he also used a Chinese analogy, comparing China and the U.S. to two wheels in a great machine that turn together unless a rock gets wedged between them. “Mr. Wu is such a rock,” he said.

There were questions from the Chinese officials about whether First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton would attend an international women’s conference in Beijing that was only two weeks away. Press accounts indicated she would not come if Wu was still detained. Chung said he repeated those accounts.

Finally, according to Chung’s recollection, lunch was finished and it seemed time to adjourn. But when Chung started to rise, he said, the vice minister reached out to stop him.

“We will do something pretty soon,” Liu said. Chung took it to mean that Wu would be released.

Chung left the meeting eager to report the news to the White House. He could reach no one, he said, because the people he knew on the president’s staff were in Montana for a Clinton birthday retreat. He called one of his friends at the DNC and asked her to relay a message to the White House.

Carol Khare, former assistant to DNC Chairman Fowler, confirmed in a telephone interview that Chung called her with such a report. She could not recall the name of the Chinese official he said he met, but she remembered Chung saying “he’d managed to get Harry Wu out of jail. He was very pleased with himself.”

She did not take the report seriously, however, and she said she did not pass along the news because “well, Johnny was a bragging kind of guy. Before he left I used to joke that he was off to see the king of China.”

Six days after Chung says he met with the vice minister, Harry Wu was deported. A lot of credit was passed around. None of it went to Johnny Chung.

Khare said she remains unsure whether Chung made a difference, but she said: “I believe Johnny honestly believed he had made an important contribution. I certainly wasn’t someone he needed to impress.”

The Chinese government, meanwhile, denies much of Chung’s story. Last week a spokesman for the foreign ministry acknowledged receiving Chung’s requests to meet state leaders during his 1995 visit, but the spokesman denied they arranged any such sessions.

“To the best of our knowledge,” the spokesman added, the vice minister did not have lunch with Chung.

Chung stayed in China for another week after Wu’s release, anticipating the arrival of Mrs. Clinton for the international women’s conference. He said he hoped to bring to an embassy reception the Chinese executives who went out on a limb to help him in his mission.

“I think at least the first lady can say thanks to these people,” Chung said.

But Chinese government pressure, says Chung, prevented the executives from attending.

Chung himself attended the reception and says he caught up with Mrs. Clinton as she was heading to her limousine. They shook hands and Chung says he told her: “I did what I could do.”

Maybe she didn’t understand, shrugs Chung. He said she simply smiled, posed for the customary picture, then drove away.

Chung feels similarly abandoned today. All of his political friends have smiled, posed for pictures and driven off without him.