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Andrew M. Cuomo’s mayoral campaign hired an adviser who was once the chairman of a state-owned oil company in China, a position typically held by people with close ties to the Chinese government.
In March, Mr. Cuomo announced that the adviser, Larry He, had become the campaign’s Asian outreach director to help garner support among New York City’s 600,000 Chinese Americans and other Asian communities ahead of this month’s Democratic primary.
Mr. He worked at the China-owned Guangxi Beibu Gulf Investment Coastal Petrochemical Co. and its parent company a decade ago, according to review of Chinese company documents and several online biographies. (His Chinese name is He Lining.)
Mr. He was chairman of the oil firm and also held other titles at the parent company, including director of asset management and head of investment promotion, before entering the New York political scene. He is now the chief of staff to State Assemblyman William Colton, who represents parts of Brooklyn.
In an interview, Mr. He acknowledged that his employment history in China could raise questions about his connections to the Chinese government and said he had omitted the experiences from a recent résumé to avoid causing concern.
Mr. He denied any past or current links to the Chinese Communist Party, saying he was never a member and that he had become a naturalized U.S. citizen in 2024 — undergoing a process that involved renouncing his Chinese citizenship.
