Ex-Carmel Mayor Brainard accuses Rep. Jim Banks of 'lying' about China relations group

Carmel will drop its membership with a China cultural and business exchange organization but keep its sister city arrangement with Xiangyang, Hubei.

Mayor Sue Finkam informed the U.S. Heartland China Association it wouldn’t renew a $25,000 yearly membership this year — but its 12-year-old city sister agreement with Xiangyang will stay in place.

“Our sister city relationships around the world, like the one with Xiangyang, provide great cultural value to our residents, including the many freedom-loving Chinese Americans who call our great city home," Finkam said in an email to the IndyStar.

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The action comes a week after Republican U.S. Rep. Jim Banks requested Carmel end the sister city relationship and withdraw from the USCHA, which he called a “dangerous group that puts the Chinese Communist Party and its interests first.”

In doing so, he also criticized former Mayor Jim Brainard for taking a USCHA-sponsored 10-day trip with other mayors to China last November.  He claimed USHCA has collaborated with Chinese state-sponsored organizations aiming to “infiltrate and influence the United States and other foreign governments.”

Brainard accused Banks of “lying” about him and the organization while throwing voters “red meat,” to get elected to the U.S. Senate.

“He is trashing it and telling outright lies about me,” said Brainard, who is also the vice-chair of the USHCA. “It is sad when a senate candidate, solely for the purposes of getting elected, makes things up.”

Brainard was incensed by comments Banks made in an interview on the All Indiana Politics podcast in early February in which he said Brainard “was wined and dined – expensive liquor, massages.”

“He wasn't there, how would he even know this, it's just made up,” Brainard said.

Banks spokesman Buckley Carlson said Banks used as reference a passage in a Washington Post story about the trip contending the mayors were “feted in big ways and small.”

It was the same story that prompted Banks to send the letter to Finkam, which asserted the Chinese government is trying to “forge ties” with U.S. cities as relationships grow worse with federal lawmakers. Carlson also pointed toward testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee in which an expert alleged that a communist party front group, the China-US Exchange Foundation, has partnered with the USHCA.

Carlson said Banks, a member of the U.S. House’s Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party, would release more information about alleged ties next week.

The USHCA is a nonprofit formed to strengthen economic, cultural and personal ties with China. Its members include 27 mayors from 20 Midwestern states. Carmel, home to 150 corporate headquarters and with a large Chinese population, benefits as much as any city from those ties, Brainard said.

Brainard said the trip with six mayors was reviewed by the U.S. State Department and U.S. Ambassador's office. The organization said the trip came after a visit by a bi-partisan delegation of six U.S. Senators; a visit by California Governor Gavin Newsom; and the meeting in San Francisco between President Joe Biden and President Xi Jinping.

“It is important to maintain ties even if we do not agree with its terrible record on human rights and other issues,” Brainard said. “Wars get started because we quit talking to each other.”

Finkam said in a statement that the membership fees “can be used more appropriately,” elsewhere, given the “the myriad of concerns Congress has regarding this organization.”

Brainard, who retired after seven terms last year and who endorsed Finkam, declined to criticize her.

“That’s her choice,” he said. “As mayor, she has funding considerations to make.”

Call IndyStar reporter John Tuohy at 317-444-6418 or email him at john.tuohy@indystar.com. Follow him on Facebook and X/Twitter.

This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Former Indiana mayor accuses Rep. Jim Banks of lying about China org