One Nation Under Blackmail – Volume 2 by Whitney Alyse Webb

Author:Whitney Alyse Webb
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Trine Day

THE TRIE TEAM

Yah Lin “Charlie” Trie was born in August 1949 and, later on in life, would claim four different birthdays, making it difficult to know exactly when or even where he was born. This is due to a “number of unexplained discrepancies” on his birth and immigration records. Though he was often reported to be Taiwanese, documents provided to the US Congress by the Taiwanese government list him as having been born in China before immigrating to Taiwan at age 16.112 Trie immigrated to the US in 1976 and settled in Little Rock, Arkansas. Two years later, he co-owned a Chinese restaurant in Little Rock, called Fu-Lin, with his sister.

Trie began donating to the Clinton family in 1982, two years before he became a citizen. Trie’s contributions seem to have been a factor in then-Governor Bill Clinton becoming a “frequent guest of Trie’s restaurant.”113 By 1988, the ties between Trie and Clinton seem to have deepened, with Trie referring to Clinton as “Lao Ke,” which roughly translates as “Big Boss.” Clinton, during his re-election campaign, would refer to Trie as his “close friend” of more than two decades.114

Not long after Trie began donating to Clinton’s gubernatorial campaigns in the 1980s, he became involved with the Riadys. Trie first waded into the Riady swamp in 1983, when he became friends with Antonio Pan, who was then working for United Pacific Trading Inc., a subsidiary of the Lippo Group. Pan later became executive vice president of Lippo’s Chinese subsidiary, the Tati Group.115 Sometime between 1983 and 1985, Trie became acquainted with James Riady, who would later give Trie a $60,000 loan in 1985 so Trie could “expan[d] his restaurant operations.”116

In late 1991, Trie sold his restaurant and created an import-export business in the US called Daihatsu International Trading Corp and began making frequent trips to China. A Senate report found that Trie had consulted Clinton about his plans and Clinton then urged him to create such a company and later sent him a letter of congratulations after the company was founded.117 During his trips to China, Trie would play up his connections to Bill Clinton and touted it, on several occasions, to prominent Arkansas businessmen as well as Arkansas state auditor Julia Hughes Jones. Jones would later, at Trie’s behest, arrange for meetings between then-president Clinton and high-ranking Chinese government officials.118 During this period, Trie would bring eight delegations of prominent Chinese officials and businessmen to Arkansas and elsewhere in the United States. Despite his frequent and extremely costly trips and his Clinton ties, Daihatsu struggled to secure even a single successful business venture.

Trie’s activities eventually caught the attention of a Macau real estate developer with ties to the Chinese government named Ng Lap Seng. Allegedly born into dire poverty but somehow also managing to bribe his way into the then-Portuguese enclave of Macau, Ng Lap Seng was a wealthy businessman by the time he forged a connection with Trie. Their first public interaction centered around what would ultimately be a failed joint venture to purchase and revamp the dilapidated Camelot Hotel in Little Rock.

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