April 3-4, 2014 -- Lee arrest in California shines light on Chinese secret societies
The recent arrest of California Democratic state senator Leland Yee on charges that he financed his campaign for California Secretary of State through illegal campaign donations and the smuggling of weapons on the international black market has focused attention on the secret societies which prominent Chinese businessmen and politicians belong. Arrested along with Lee was Chinatown's Raymond "Shrimp Boy" Chow, a former gangster and the head of the Chee Kung Tong Masonic organization in San Francisco. The Chee Kung Tong, one of a number of Chinese secret society brotherhoods, is officially a part of international Freemasonry.
Many observers of Chinese tong and secret society activities were surprised that the FBI would aggressively target Chinese secret societies in a manner similar to the FBI's past actions against Italian organized crime syndicates.
Given the CIA's and its predecessor, the Office of Strategic Services', use of Chinese Masonic secret societies in its operations in China and throughout Asia, there has always been a reluctance to target Chinese Masonic "tongs" in the United States.
WMR has obtained from CIA archives a formerly Confidential OSS Central Intelligence Group report, dated November 13, 1946, on the OSS's use of Chinese Freemasons in the Nationalist Chinese civil war against the Chinese Communists. The report clearly identifies the leading role of the "Hung Men Society," also known as the Chinese Freemasons Society, is assisting the Nationalists and OSS in the war against Mao Zedong's Communist forces. Amazingly, the entire first paragraph of the 1946 document remains redacted.
In Hong Kong, the "Hung Men" became known as the Triad societies, another key element in Asian organized crime. The OSS report identified four Hung Men or Freemason political parties that arose in post-World War II China that assisted the Nationalist Kuomintang (KMT) party of Chiang Kai-shek in its battle against the Communists. They were: the Chinese Freemasons' Democratic Party, the China Livelihood Promotion Party, the Democratic Reconstruction Association, and the Chinese Freemasons' Prosperity Association.
The OSS report states: "Although strictly a Chinese organization, the Jung Men Society (also known as Chih Kung Tang [although spelled differently, the same group to which Lee and Chow belonged to in San Francisco Chinatown] is alleged to have received a charter from the Masons of California, recognizing them as "Chinese Freemasons."
The OSS report describes the Hung Men as dating back to the Ming dynasty. Hung Men clubs were known as "shan" or mountains and each club, hidden in the mountains, was headed up by a "bandit" chief. After the advent of the Ching dynasty and Manchu rule in China, the Hung Men set up revolutionary movements to battle the Manchu rulers. Defeated by the Ching rulers, the Hung Men fled abroad. The OSS report states they fled to "America, Australia, and South Sea Isles to establish Hung Men Societies as revolutionary forces."
Launching his nationalist movement in Hawaii to overthrow the Ching dynasty, Chinese anti-monarchist leader Sun Yat-sen, according to the OSS report, joined the Hung Men in Honolulu before the outset of the republican revolution in China. Hung Men societies in Hawaii, San Francisco, Singapore, and Malaya helped Sun Yat-sen, a U.S. national, to ultimately overthrow the Ching dynasty in 1912, thus establishing the Republic of China.
The OSS report describes a number of contributions the Hung Men Freemasons made to the Chinese Nationalist cause. They are credited with providing financial and material help to the Chinese central government and raising half of the $800 million fund raised by overseas Chinese for the war resistance in China against the Japanese. The Chinese Freemasons reportedly had "over three chapters" in the United States, Canada, and Mexico.
The OSS also reported the strength opf the Hung Men Freemasons in China itself: "It is said that eighty percent of the Szu-chuan [Sichuan] natives were members of the "P'ao Ke Hui"/P'ao Ko -- Brothers of Long Gown -- a mutual aid society which is a branch of the Hung Men Society.
One overseas Hung Men member, Szu-Tu Mei-t'ang, the president of the On Leong Association and a resident of San Francisco and New York, was also an honorary adviser to the Chinese Executive Yuan, the national legislature of the Chinese Republic.
In August 1946, Hung Men Freemasons from China, the United States, Canada, Australia, Cuba, and the "South Seas" met in Shanghai. The Hung Men, which included 81-year old Szu-Tu Mei-t'ang, the chairman of the "Hung Men Chih Kung Tang" and representatives of the Five-Continent Freemasons' Society of America, organized the Chinese Freemasons' Democratic Party or "Democratic Party" for short.
The party's platform explicitly stated that "internal problems are not to be presented to the United Nations." The party also pledged support to the central government.
Given the past connections between the Hung Men and the OSS, and later the CIA, it comes as no surprise that Lee and Chow were indicted for smuggling arms to various countries around the world. Lee, who supported stronger gun control laws in California, was charged with dealing with an anonymous Filipino arms dealer to smuggle weapons from Moro Islamic Liberation Front guerrillas in Mindanao, who are now disarming after signing a peace agreement with the Philippines government, to the United States, Sicily, and North Africa.
Given the nature of past CIA smuggling activities, it is entirely likely that Yee and his fellow Hung Men believed they enjoyed the "cover" of the CIA. If so, someone forgot to tell the FBI not to target San Francisco's Hung Men.
Source:
waynemadsenreport.com
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