The Bridges

By Ekewaka Lono | Oahu Underground

Second in a series. “The Federal Layer” documented how the institutional density surrounding retired Per Diem Judge Wilson M.N. Loo’s family network crowds out a straightforward federal prosecution. This article follows the same network outward — to Beijing.

Series Navigation

• Series: The Architecture of Access
• Read Part I: The Federal Layer (domestic federal)
• Part II (this page): The Bridges
• The Two Questions: federal investigative roadmap
• Investigations index

Method and Standard

This article documents publicly verifiable institutional relationships that create repeated access points between Hawaii’s civic, educational, and defense-adjacent institutions and organizations that operate under or are linked to the PRC’s party-state influence and security ecosystem — including the United Front Work Department, military and security structures under the People’s Liberation Army, entities affiliated with the Ministry of State Security, and government-affiliated civil institutions that participate in influence or security-facing engagement.

It does not allege that any individual or institution has been directed, tasked, or controlled by a foreign government. It does not allege criminal conduct. It does not allege espionage.

This article is a public-record brief. It relies only on materials that are publicly accessible or publicly quotable. The author may possess additional non-public information that is not included to protect sources, safety, or lawful investigative constraints. No claim in this article requires any undisclosed evidence to be true. The evidence consists of public filings (IRS Form 990, foundation records), official institutional websites, Department of Defense publications, congressional reports, participant lists, and recognized think-tank analyses. No classified sources were used. The standard applied is documented relationships and access patterns, not alleged intent. Institutions included here that are not intelligence organs but operate as routine counterparts in influence, diplomacy, and security-facing engagement are included for exposure mapping, not allegation.

Key Terms

Throughout this article, the following terms carry specific operational meanings:

• Subordinate: formally under a party or state organ via charter, leadership appointment, or statutory supervisory authority (主管单位).
• Affiliated (structural): linked through governance overlap, funding dependency, or documented supervisory relationships (业务指导) — i.e., a formal institutional relationship.
• Characterized as affiliated: described by named government, congressional, or academic sources as tied to a party-state organ. Institutional characterization alone is not treated as proof of control or direction; it is a risk marker relevant to safeguarding decisions.
• Intelligence-linked: characterized as connected to PRC intelligence services by named analysts, USG reports, or government-sponsored research — not independently verified by this investigation.
• Access point: repeated institutional interaction that creates social contact, reputational signaling, information exchange, or potential cultivation opportunity across national security boundaries. Access points are commonplace in diplomacy and international education; the analytic question is whether safeguards match the sensitivity of the specific partnership.

Scope and Limitations

This investigation covers only relationships documented in public records. It does not have access to classified assessments, internal institutional communications, or non-public vetting records. Institutions named here may have conducted due diligence that is not publicly disclosed. The absence of public evidence of safeguards is not evidence that safeguards were absent.

Hawaii is a small state with dense, overlapping civic networks. Cultural diplomacy and diaspora institutions routinely host foreign delegations. Track-2 security dialogues intentionally include state-linked counterparts. Network overlap in this environment is common, even expected. The analytic question this article poses is not whether overlap exists — it does, by design — but whether institutional safeguards scale with the sensitivity of specific partnerships, particularly when a foreign partner operates under a party-state influence or intelligence structure.

A note on Track 1.5 dialogues. Several relationships documented in this article involve “Track 1.5” security dialogues. Track 1 refers to official government-to-government negotiations. Track 2 refers to unofficial dialogues between private citizens or academics. Track 1.5 occupies the space between: participants include current or former government officials and military officers acting in an unofficial or semi-official capacity alongside academic and think-tank experts. Discussions are typically off-the-record. The format is deliberately designed to allow candid exchange on sensitive topics — including nuclear strategy — outside formal diplomatic channels. Pacific Forum describes this format in its event reporting.¹

A note on “Beijing.” This article uses “Beijing” as shorthand for the PRC party-state ecosystem — the institutional apparatus of the Chinese Communist Party, the State Council, and subordinate organs. It does not equate the Chinese people, Chinese culture, or China as a civilization with the activities of its governing structures. The institutional relationships documented here involve specific party-state organs and their affiliates, not China broadly.

The Website

Punahou School describes its Luke Center for Chinese Studies on the school’s official website.² The Center was established with $1.5 million from the K.J. Luke family — the family behind Hawaii National Bank.³ The Luke Center supports K–12 Chinese language and China studies, immersion experiences in China, and faculty travel groups to China.⁴

Warren K.K. Luke, chairman of Hawaii National Bank and a member of the K.J. Luke family, is listed as chairman of the Dr. Sun Yat-sen Hawaii Foundation, a member of Pacific Forum’s Board of Governors (confirmed in the Pacific Forum 2020 Annual Report), and a trustee of the APCSS Foundation (confirmed in ProPublica filings for EIN 99-0350533).⁵⁶ Whether this governance concentration reflects deliberate strategy, organic civic engagement, or both is not assessed here. What it creates is a structural overlap between educational, diplomatic, defense-adjacent, and PRC-facing institutions that warrants documentation.

Punahou is the largest single-campus independent school in the United States, with 3,770 students.⁷

The website states that the Luke Center maintains “ongoing projects with the Soong Ching Ling Foundation and the Beijing Normal University school system.”⁸

Three entities share the Soong Ching Ling name but occupy different positions in the PRC institutional hierarchy:

• The China Soong Ching Ling Foundation (CSCLF), based in Beijing, is described by PRC state media as a “people’s organization under CPC leadership.”⁹ Its chair, Li Bin, is a CPPCC vice-chair, per CPPCC reporting.¹⁰ At CSCLF’s 40th‑anniversary ceremony, UFWD head You Quan read Xi Jinping’s congratulatory letter urging the foundation to follow the principle of “peace, reunification, and future” and to promote unity among Chinese at home and abroad.⁹
• The Soong Ching Ling School in Shanghai is a K–12 school that sent twelve students to Punahou for a week-long exchange including classroom learning and family homestays.¹¹
• The Soong Ching Ling Foundation referenced on the Luke Center’s website is not further specified. Whether it refers to the CSCLF, a regional branch, or a distinct entity is not clarified on the page.

The U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission describes the UFWD as the CCP organ that coordinates influence work abroad and directs “overseas Chinese work” aimed at co-opting and neutralizing potential opposition.¹² The House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party published a briefing in 2023 titled “United Front 101.”¹³

The Luke Center page does not disclose whether these “ongoing projects” are formalized via memorandum of understanding, the frequency of contact, whether funds flow to PRC counterparts, or whether any third-party screening or vetting procedures apply. If Punahou publishes MOUs or partner-vetting policies for these partnerships, this section should be updated accordingly.

The Delegation

In May 2024, a delegation from the China Soong Ching Ling Foundation arrived in Hawaii, led by Secretary General Zhang Jimin.¹⁴ The delegation was hosted by the Dr. Sun Yat-sen Hawaii Foundation.¹⁵

The Sun Yat-sen Hawaii Foundation is chaired by Warren K.K. Luke.¹⁶ The foundation lists its mailing address as c/o 45 North King Street, Suite 600, Honolulu, Hawaii.¹⁷

The CSCLF delegation, hosted by Luke’s foundation, visited both Iolani School and Punahou School.¹⁸ The two foundations “exchanged ideas for future cooperation.”¹⁹

Separately, in October 2025, Punahou hosted twelve students from Soong Ching Ling School in Shanghai for a week that included classroom learning and family homestays.¹¹

How Engagement Creates Exposure

When a foreign partner institution operates under a party-state influence or security structure, and when the relationship creates persistent access to individuals and institutions with national security equities, the question is whether participating institutions have assessed the counterintelligence implications of their specific partnerships (see Method and Standard above).

Not all contact carries equal risk. The relationships documented in this article span a range of sensitivity:

• Tier 1 — Cultural and educational partnerships (K–12 student exchange, language instruction, homestays): routine in international education, but warrant basic partner due diligence when the counterpart institution operates under a state influence organ.
• Tier 2 — Institutional diplomacy and recurring delegation hosting (CSCLF visits, Chamber of Commerce delegations, foundation cooperation agreements): create persistent access channels and reputational signaling that can be leveraged for cultivation, per USCC analysis.¹²
• Tier 3 — Defense-adjacent engagements with entities characterized as intelligence-linked (Pacific Forum–CFISS Track 1.5 nuclear dialogues, APCSS hosting PLA delegations, Track 1.5 participation by think tanks described by USG sources as MSS-affiliated or intelligence-run): involve the highest sensitivity and the most direct counterintelligence exposure.^{20212223242526}

The analytic question is whether safeguards scale with tier. Being a partner is not being an agent. Being a target of cultivation is not being controlled. This article documents access patterns across all three tiers. Evidence of exploitation would require a different investigation.

Pacific Forum: Track 1.5 Nuclear Dialogue

Pacific Forum, the Honolulu-based foreign policy research institute on whose Board of Governors Warren Luke served, was a primary U.S. convener of a Track 1.5 U.S.–China dialogue on strategic nuclear dynamics that ran from 2004 to 2019, according to a history of the series by the Center for Global Security Research (CGSR) at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.²⁷ Pacific Forum’s 2017 annual report lists the China‑U.S. Dialogue on Strategic Nuclear Dynamics and identifies the China Foundation for International and Strategic Studies (CFISS) as the Chinese co‑convenor.²⁰²⁸

The National Committee on U.S.-China Relations, in its survey of bilateral security programs, states that CFISS “has ties with the Second Department (Intelligence) of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) General Staff.”²¹ This investigation does not independently verify that relationship; the survey is a single open‑source characterization.

CGSR notes the dialogue was supported by the Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA), that DTRA invested approximately $5 million over 15 years, and that DTRA terminated its support in 2019 following declining Chinese participation.²⁷ CGSR also notes that Pacific Forum played the primary convening role for many years.²⁷

Track 1.5 dialogues like this are routinely used by U.S. agencies to reduce miscalculation and improve crisis communication. The counterintelligence question is not why the dialogue existed, but how persistent semi‑formal access was screened and safeguarded when a counterpart is described in U.S. survey research as PLA intelligence‑linked.

Pacific Forum published participant lists. The March 2017 dialogue in Washington is documented in a PDF on pacforum.org.²² The Chinese delegation included:

• Liu Chong, Deputy Director, Institute of Arms Control and Security Studies, China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations (CICIR).²⁹ CICIR is a government research institute; a DNI Open Source Center profile describes it as “MSS-affiliated.”²³ Peter Mattis testified that CICIR and CIISS are think tanks run by Chinese intelligence.²⁴ Context: the presence of officials from an institution characterized by U.S. intelligence community sources as MSS‑affiliated in a recurring nuclear strategy dialogue underscores the sensitivity of the exposure surface.

• Chunsi Wu, Director, Institute of International Strategic Studies, Shanghai Institutes for International Studies (SIIS).³⁰ SIIS describes itself as “a government-affiliated high-caliber think tank dedicated to informing government decision-making” and “bolstering China’s international influence and soft power.”³¹ Context: SIIS is a PRC government think tank, not an intelligence entity; it is included here for the range of state-linked participants in the dialogue.

• Senior Colonel Shuman Yu, PRC Embassy in Washington.³² Context: a serving PLA military officer in diplomatic assignment.

• Representatives of Peking University and Fudan University.³³

Across the table sat officials from the Office of the Secretary of Defense, the State Department, U.S. Strategic Command, the Defense Threat Reduction Agency, and the National Nuclear Security Administration.³⁴

Pacific Forum also manages the U.S. member committee of CSCAP — the Council for Security Cooperation in the Asia Pacific — which it describes as a cornerstone of its security cooperation work.³⁵

APCSS: PLA Delegations and Exchanges

The Daniel K. Inouye Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies is a U.S. Department of Defense institute in Honolulu, Hawaii.³⁶ Its supporting foundation, EIN 99-0350533, lists Warren Luke as Trustee.³⁷

The Congressional Research Service, in Report RL32496 on U.S.-China military contacts, recommends that Congress “review exchanges at PACOM’s Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies (APCSS) in Hawaii.”³⁸

In 2007, a delegation led by General Zheng Shenxia — Chairman of the PLA’s Society of Military Science and President of the Academy of Military Science — brought nine PLA military strategists to APCSS. This is documented in APCSS Currents, a DOD publication.²⁵

In November 2016, the U.S.-China Disaster Management Exchange held its Expert Academic Dialogue in Kunming, China. The Army report notes the dialogue included briefings from APCSS, and PLA participants included Lieutenant General Liu Xiaowu of the Southern Theater Command, the command responsible for the South China Sea.²⁶

China is listed as a participating country in the APCSS Advanced Security Cooperation Course 16‑2 roster announcement.³⁹

The NCUSCR survey of U.S.-China security programs notes that APCSS “has so far been unable to re-engage the Chinese,” suggesting PLA participation was suspended at some point, for reasons not disclosed in the survey.⁴⁰

The APCSS Foundation files 990-EZ returns.⁴¹ The abbreviated form does not disclose individual donors. Warren Luke is listed as trustee of a foundation supporting a DOD institution that hosted PLA generals.

The Chamber and the Vice Governor

Warren Luke is listed as an Emeritus Director of the Chinese Chamber of Commerce of Hawaii.⁴²

In January 2024, the Chamber led a delegation to China, visiting Fuzhou, Zhangzhou, and Zhongshan.⁴³ In March 2024, the Chamber hosted a welcome reception for Vice Governor Guo Ningning of Fujian Province in Honolulu.⁴⁴

The U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission has documented that Chinese chambers of commerce globally are common targets for UFWD cultivation.⁴⁵ The Jamestown Foundation and the Australian Strategic Policy Institute have published similar analyses.⁴⁶ Being identified as a target of cultivation is not evidence of being controlled.

No direct evidence of UFWD control or direction of the Hawaii Chinese Chamber was found in this investigation.⁴⁷

Counterintelligence Environment

The following cases provide context for why Hawaii is a high-interest counterintelligence environment. They are not evidence that any individual or organization named elsewhere in this article is connected to espionage. None of the named individuals or institutions documented in the preceding sections appear in any of these cases.

Three espionage cases have been prosecuted in the District of Hawaii.⁴⁸ The following summaries are drawn from DOJ press releases and court records:

Noshir Gowadia — convicted 2010 — a former Northrop B-2 stealth bomber engineer on Maui who, according to trial evidence, took six trips to the PRC between 2003 and 2005 to provide design and test-support services for a low-signature cruise missile exhaust nozzle and received at least $110,000.⁴⁹

Benjamin Pierce Bishop — sentenced 2014 to 87 months — a retired Army lieutenant colonel and PACOM defense contractor who e‑mailed classified information in 2012 to a 27‑year‑old Chinese national with whom he had a romantic relationship; the DOJ release states the information related to U.S.–Republic of Korea joint training and planning sessions and other classified defense planning documents.⁵⁰

Alexander Yuk Ching Ma — sentenced 2024, ten years — a former CIA clandestine officer who became an MSS asset by 2001 and, in a Hong Kong hotel meeting captured on video, provided classified CIA information to Shanghai State Security Bureau officers for $50,000 cash.⁵¹

Separately, a DOJ indictment charged four Chinese nationals working for the Hainan State Security Department (MSS) with a global computer-intrusion campaign; a CISA advisory describes the same group (APT40) as targeting companies, universities, and research organizations in sectors including maritime.⁵² Neither the indictment nor the advisory names specific Hawaii institutions as victims.

Assistant Attorney General for National Security John Demers met with government, military, and business leaders in Honolulu in December 2019 to warn about Chinese industrial espionage threats; he stated that Hawaii is of great interest to China.⁵³

These cases illustrate the operational environment: Hawaii’s concentration of military installations, defense contractors, and Pacific-facing diplomatic infrastructure makes it a persistent intelligence target. That context informs why the institutional relationships documented in this article — particularly those involving defense-adjacent institutions and PRC entities characterized by USG sources as intelligence-linked — merit public scrutiny and adequate safeguarding.

What Adequate Safeguards Look Like

The open questions posed in this article are not rhetorical. Institutions that maintain partnerships with PRC party-state-linked entities can mitigate counterintelligence risk through standard practices. Safeguards should scale with the tier of engagement:

Tier 1 — Cultural and educational partnerships:

• Partner due diligence: reviewing open-source information and USG advisories (USCC, NCSC, State Department) on counterpart institutions before formalizing partnerships.
• Basic visitor policies: verifying the institutional affiliations of visiting delegations.

Tier 2 — Institutional diplomacy and recurring delegation hosting:

• Written MOUs specifying scope, deliverables, and governance of the partnership.
• Funding transparency: documenting the source, destination, and purpose of any funds flowing between U.S. and PRC partner institutions.
• Structured agendas with defined boundaries on topics and facility access.

Tier 3 — Defense-adjacent engagements with entities characterized as intelligence-linked:

• Formal screening of all participants, verifying backgrounds against USG advisories and open-source intelligence.
• Access controls: ensuring sensitive briefings are not delivered to unvetted participants; limiting facility access at defense installations.
• Documentation: maintaining records of all contacts, topics discussed, and follow-up.
• Staff training: ensuring personnel involved in foreign engagements are aware of common cultivation and elicitation techniques as described by the National Counterintelligence and Security Center (NCSC).⁵⁴

Whether any of the institutions named in this article have implemented such measures is not known from public records. These engagements were common, sometimes government-sponsored, and may have been deliberately structured to manage risk. The question is not whether engagement occurred — it did, by design — but what the safeguarding structure was. The tiers above are the standards against which readers can assess the adequacy of institutional responses.

What This Article Documents

The documented institutional relationships, in chronological order:

• 2004–2019: Pacific Forum served as a primary U.S. convener of the Track 1.5 China‑U.S. Dialogue on Strategic Nuclear Dynamics, co‑organized with CFISS and supported by DTRA.²⁰²⁸²⁷
• 2007: PLA strategists led by General Zheng Shenxia visited APCSS, the DOD institution whose foundation lists Luke as trustee.²⁵
• 2016: The U.S.–China Disaster Management Exchange held its Expert Academic Dialogue in Kunming; the Army report notes APCSS briefings and PLA participation including Lt. Gen. Liu Xiaowu of the Southern Theater Command.²⁶
• 2017: The Pacific Forum–CFISS dialogue included CICIR officials described by the DNI Open Source Center as MSS‑affiliated, and a serving PLA military officer from the PRC Embassy.²²²³
• Ongoing: Punahou’s Luke Center, funded by the K.J. Luke family, cites “ongoing projects with the Soong Ching Ling Foundation” (unspecified on the Luke Center page).⁵⁵
• May 2024: The China Soong Ching Ling Foundation (CSCLF, described by PRC state media as a “people’s organization under CPC leadership”) sent a delegation to Hawaii hosted by the Sun Yat‑sen Foundation chaired by Warren Luke.⁹¹⁴¹⁶
• October 2025: Shanghai students from Soong Ching Ling School (a K–12 school distinct from the CSCLF) lived in the homes of Punahou families.¹¹

Warren Luke is listed as serving on Pacific Forum’s Board of Governors (Pacific Forum 2020 Annual Report), as Trustee of the APCSS Foundation (ProPublica filings, EIN 99-0350533), and as chairman of the Sun Yat‑sen Foundation.⁵⁶

This does not establish direction, tasking, or espionage. It establishes that a small number of individuals occupied positions across civic, educational, financial, and defense-adjacent institutions — and that several of those institutions maintained relationships with PRC entities that U.S. government sources describe as tied to party‑state influence, military, or security structures (UFWD, PLA, MSS), as well as government‑affiliated civil institutions participating in influence and security‑facing engagement.

The recommendation is not disengagement — it is risk-managed engagement: ensuring that safeguards scale with the tier of partnership. The open questions that follow are offered in that spirit.

Evidence Map

Open Questions

• What are the “ongoing projects” between the Luke Center and the Soong Ching Ling Foundation in practice — MOU terms, funding flows, governance, deliverables?
• Who vetted the May 2024 CSCLF delegation visit and the October 2025 Shanghai student homestay program, and under what institutional policy?
• What due diligence did Punahou, Pacific Forum, and the APCSS Foundation perform regarding the UFWD, PLA, or MSS affiliations of their partner organizations?
• What safeguards existed for the Track 1.5 dialogues co‑organized by Pacific Forum with CFISS, which a U.S. bilateral-program survey describes as having ties to PLA intelligence?
• The APCSS Foundation (EIN 99-0350533) files 990-EZ returns, but publicly available copies typically redact donor identities (Schedule B).⁴¹ Unredacted contributor records held by the IRS or the foundation itself could clarify major funding streams. Congressional oversight committees, the DOD Inspector General, and GAO may be able to obtain this information through mechanisms such as congressional subpoena, IG audit request, or GAO review.

Sources and Notes