Wealth Blog | Rocky road for New York’s first Chinese candidate for mayor

You’ve got to hand it to John Liu, New York most famous Chinese (Taiwanese) immigrant and the city’s current comptroller. You can’t pick up a newspaper without seeing his regular, suave, well-groomed features beaming back at you. He looks the part, but as usual where’s there’s politics in America, there’s money sloshing about. And scandal.  And smiling Liu is no exception. He arrived from Taiwan aged five, grew up in Queens, and now, at 46, is bidding to replace Michael Bloomberg, now in his lame duck third term, as New York’s next mayor. 

He would be the Big Apple's first Asian-American mayor: you are not allowed to call him Chinese in this capital of political correctness.  But first he needs to overcome headlines such as: "NYC Comptroller John Liu's fundraiser arrested on fraud charge" in the New York Post; "Controller John Liu's mayoral candidacy threatened by trial of his campaign's ex-treasurer and an ex-fund-raiser" in the New York Daily News ; and "John Liu aides scandal: Trial starts for associates of NYC mayoral hopeful" in Newsday – well you get the drift. Even the China Daily has picked up on his antics.

And by the sound of things he’s going to be called a lot worse things than Asian-American before the votes are cast in November.

What Did Liu Do? 

So what exactly has he done? It’s politics and US political fund raising is always murky stuff.