U.S. officials are worried the new owner of the Waldorf-Astoria, a Chinese company suspected of having ties to the communist party, may use the famed New York City hotel to spy on the government.
Beijing-based Anbang Insurance Group recently purchased Manhattan's Waldorf-Astoria for $1.95 billion, announcing plans to restore the city landmark to his former glory.
But the State Department fears the insurance giant, said to have ties to China's Communist Party, will somehow use any "restoration" project to carry out a cyber-espionage scheme to steal U.S. trade and military secrets, the New York Daily News reported.
"We are currently in the process of reviewing the details of the sale and the company's long-term plans for the facility," Kurtis Cooper, spokesman for the U.S. Mission to the United Nations, told the newspaper.
The Waldorf-Astoria's presidential suite has been a temporary home to every U.S. president visiting the city since Herbert Hoover, including President Barack Obama. The Obama administration did not say if whether or not the president will continue staying at the hotel.
However, the State Department is thinking about terminating its lease on a residence at the Waldorf for the U.S. ambassador to the U.N., which dates back five decades, the Daily News reported.
Suspicion of espionage runs so deep that American diplomats- and citizens- who travel to China are urged to mind what they let slip during their stay.
"Hotel rooms (including meeting rooms), offices, cars, taxis, telephones, Internet usages and fax machines may be monitored onsite or remotely, and personal possessions in hotel rooms, including computers, may be searched without your consent or knowledge," reads the department's travel advice, according to the newspaper.
The espionage alarm comes five months after a U.S. grand jury indicted five Chinese military officers for allegedly hacking into several nuclear, solar and metal companies to steal trade secrets.
China denounced the indictment as "made up" and warned it might damage its relationship with the U.S.
