President Obama has changed his travel plans due to concerns that New York City’s Waldorf-Astoria has been compromised by the Chinese.
Instead of staying there when he travels to the city for next month’s meeting of the United Nations’ General Assembly, the president and his staff will stay at the New York Palace Hotel, White House spokesman Josh Earnest said on Friday. “I can confirm that the president and the U.S. delegation will stay at the New York Palace Hotel,” he said. However, he added, “I don’t have a lot of information to share about this.”
The Waldorf has served as the residence for the U.S. ambassador to the U.N. since 1947. State Department Spokesman Mark Toner said the move took “changing circumstances.”
“We constantly re-evaluate venues to take into account changing circumstances,” Toner said. “In making our decision we considered numerous factors, including space, cost, the needs of the United States government and any possible security concerns.”
In reference to whether the hotel would continue to serve as the U.S. ambassador’s residence, Toner said the department was reviewing “security protocols and standard operating procedures to ensure the safety and security of our information and personnel.”
Unnamed officials said last year’s sale of the hotel to the Beijing-based Anbang Insurance Group was one cause for concern. The U.S. has been the subject of successful hacking efforts by the Chinese in the past year. Most notably, that included the Office of Personnel Management breach that resulted in the exfiltration of classified personnel files on 21.5 million people.
“This is not a one-off. We will continue to see this until we create both the substance and psychology of deterrence,” Director of National Intelligence James Clapper told the House Intelligence Committee Thursday, in reference to the OPM breach.
The General Assembly is set to convene on Sept. 16, and general debate will run through Sept. 30. It will overlap with a planned visit by Chinese President Xi Jinping to Washington, D.C., this month where leaders will discuss recent Chinese espionage among other topics. Officials have warned that the U.S. may place sanctions on aspects of the Chinese economy in response.
Susan Crabtree contributed to this report.
