New York Democratic congressman Josh Riley's father-in-law cofounded an institute at a Chinese government-controlled university that routinely boosts the Chinese Communist Party's Belt and Road Initiative, a massive international economic strategy aimed at bringing foreign nations closer to Beijing and further from the United States, a Washington Free Beacon review found. Riley himself attended at least three of the group's events and later voted against legislation targeting Chinese influence peddling in the United States.

Riley's father-in-law, Harinder Kohli, is the founding director and chief executive of Emerging Markets Forum, a nonprofit founded in 2005 that hosts an annual "Global Meeting" centered on economic issues facing developing nations. It also has deep ties to the CCP. In 2011, the forum cofunded the Emerging Markets Institute at Beijing Normal University, which is controlled by China's Ministry of Education and requires its students to "support the leadership of Chinese Communist Party" and "serve the socialist modernization." The school has regularly sponsored the forum's annual meetings.

The forum has also partnered with the Chinese People's Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries, an arm of the CCP's "United Front" system, which aims to establish Chinese influence abroad, including by partnering with U.S. government officials and organizations. In 2015, the association and the Emerging Markets Forum teamed up to host the 2015 Beijing Forum for Emerging Markets, according to a 2019 Emerging Markets Forum pamphlet touting its work.

The forum's ties to the CCP may explain why it promotes trade with U.S. adversaries like China and boosts Beijing's Belt and Road Initiative. Riley's father-in-law, for example, is the editor of the 2019 book China's Belt and Road Initiative: Potential Transformation of Central Asia and the South Caucasus, which advises developing countries on how to "realize the promise of the BRI … while avoiding the pitfalls that lie along the way." China aimed to use the initiative to invest more than $1 trillion in developing countries and bring them into Beijing's orbit, but many of the projects have fallen apart, prompting backlash.

The forum appears to have had an impact on Riley, who participated in its 2014, 2017, and 2019 global meetings. During the 2017 event, he spoke on a panel titled "The Pushbacks against Globalization: Possible Ways Forward" alongside Biliang Hu, who at the time was the dean of the Emerging Markets Institute. Hu went on to become the executive dean of Beijing Normal University's Belt and Road School, which was founded to train "international talents for the 'Belt and Road Initiative'" and to promote the program.

Several years later, Riley opposed legislation that would have slapped guardrails on Chinese influence peddling in the United States. He voted against the 2025 DETERRENT Act, which would have required universities and colleges to disclose gifts of any amount from "a foreign country of concern"—with China and Russia named as examples—and to obtain waivers before inking contracts with such nations. More than 30 Democrats broke ranks to help pass the bill in the House, though it died in the Senate.

Riley and his father-in-law's ties to the Chinese government and its foreign influence operations come as Riley faces a challenge from Republican state senator Peter Oberacker in New York's competitive 19th Congressional District, a race that could help determine which party controls the House. Connections to the Belt and Road Initiative could be particularly troubling for Riley, as China has used the program to reduce its independence on U.S. agriculture, a major industry in the district.

The Belt and Road Initiative, launched by Chinese president Xi Jinping in 2013 to diminish the United States' global influence, doles out loans to developing countries to build infrastructure such as power plants and airports. But China's lending practices use opaque financing and can saddle those nations with hefty debts.

At the 2019 Emerging Markets Forum global meeting that Riley attended, the Democrat's father-in-law, Kohli, praised projects created through the initiative as being "built to the best world standards," according to CCP-run Xinhua News Agency. "One of the major shortages and constraints for development in most emerging markets is capital, and the [Belt and Road Initiative] provides that," Kohli said. As for accusations of debt traps, he said, "I do not agree with that at all."

Riley did not respond to a request for comment.

Riley married Kohli's daughter, strategic consultant Monica Kohli, at a "black-tie soiree" held at the Daughters of the American Revolution National Headquarters in Washington, D.C., which was "decked in lavender, berry, fuchsia and gold with traditional twists" for the 2016 affair, according to a spread published by The Knot.

"We loved that the location was totally DC," Riley's bride told the wedding planning company. "We wanted it to reflect our cultural upbringings, but also that we are both urban, young and stylish."

Riley, a Harvard Law School graduate, lived in the District of Columbia for years, working as former Democratic senator Al Franken's general counsel and at the international law firm Boies Schiller Flexner. He moved back to upstate New York to run for Congress in 2022, presenting himself as a flannel-wearing fifth-generation upstate New Yorker who grew up in a "working-class neighborhood" and was "running for Congress to give working families a Square Deal."

Riley did not win that race but won in a rematch against then-Republican congressman Marc Molinaro two years later. He did not need to search for housing in D.C., having purchased a four-bedroom home in the district for $1.6 million in 2020, local records reported by the Free Beacon show.