T he husband-and-wife team of Gordon Tang and Huaidan Chen have used their wealth to forge ties with an array of American politicians — including San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee; former Ambassador to China Gary Locke; and two prominent members of the Bush family clan, Neil and Jeb. Tang and Chen, both in their late 40s, are Chinese citizens living in Singapore, where they have permanent resident status.

One of the couple’s companies, a California corporation called American Pacific International Capital, cultivated close ties to U.S. politicians as the firm amassed a growing real estate portfolio over the last seven years, snapping up commercial property from Oregon to Ohio to seize upon opportunities following the 2008 financial crisis.

As The Intercept is reporting today, APIC last year made a $1.3 million donation to Right to Rise USA, a Super PAC supporting Jeb Bush — brother of APIC board member Neil Bush. And just two years prior to the Bush contribution, Chen purchased Locke’s Bethesda, Maryland, home while Locke was still in office as ambassador to China.

These financial transactions are part of a strategy for maintaining “our friends,” said Wilson Chen, Huaidan’s brother, a naturalized U.S. citizen who also serves on APIC’s board.

“The politicians, they always want to ask for help, that’s the natural politician,” Chen explained over dinner in a new restaurant he opened in San Francisco’s SoMa district serving food from his native Chaozhou, a city in southeastern China. He emphasized that the campaign donations were legal and reviewed by attorneys.

Chen said his company has contributed to politicians from both parties and has long admired the Bush family, especially for its history with China — going back to George H.W. Bush’s service as the chief U.S. diplomat in Beijing in the 1970s.

Asked if his brother-in-law Gordon Tang viewed the seven-figure donation to Right to Rise as a waste, given Jeb Bush’s failed bid for the Republican nomination, Chen shook his head and said Tang did not because it involved “helping a friend.”

Tang himself expressed similar views on money and friendship during a remarkable telephone interview with The Intercept’s Elaine Yu — a Hong Kong-based freelancer and co-author of this article — in which he offered her cash not to report on online rumors about his past.

The rumors are related to smuggling investigations in the early 2000s in the southeastern Chinese city of Shantou. The fact that Tang was entangled in the Shantou probe is disclosed in corporate filings by SingHaiyi, a Singapore corporation of which Tang and his wife are majority shareholders. The Singapore stock exchange requires listed companies to report if an executive or board member has managed “any corporation which has been investigated for a breach of any law” in any country.

A 2013 SingHaiyi announcement says that in 2001 and 2002, a “sector wide” investigation of “custom duties matters” was conducted into all leading importers in Shantou, including Tang and a previous company he owned. According to the SingHaiyi statement, “many in Shantou” were convicted, including individuals who “were staff in Mr. Tang’s import and export business,” and assets of Tang’s business were seized, but in the end, Chinese courts imposed “no penalties or convictions” on Tang personally.

(Since Neil Bush serves on SingHaiyi’s board as well as APIC’s, the same disclosure notes the ugly fallout from Bush’s 1980s stint on the board of Silverado Savings & Loan in Colorado.)

Tang strongly averred his innocence during a multiparty conference call with The Intercept and provided an official 2014 Shantou government document stating that he has no criminal record. “The Singapore Stock Exchange is very stringent,” said Tang. “When they saw some nonsense on the internet they asked about it. So I showed them the [Shantou document], and they have verified its authenticity.”

James Mei, Tang’s U.S. lawyer, characterized the rumors as “grossly inaccurate” and said Tang “passed very high-level security background checks by the U.S. including the State Department, the USCIS [U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services] and the FBI” when Mei represented him for recent visa applications.

Following that call, Tang telephoned Yu directly in Hong Kong. Speaking with her in Cantonese, Tang was alternately threatening and cajoling, asking Yu to prevent The Intercept from referencing unverified claims on Chinese-language websites that he had been accused of smuggling, tax evasion, and bribery in Shantou. If she did, Tang said, when he came to Hong Kong the following week he would give her “a red packet of 200,000 dollars, so we can be friends,” adding, “I don’t even know why you want to be a reporter, reporters make so little money.”