The groups, many of them tax-exempt nonprofits, have allowed America’s most formidable adversary to influence elections in the country’s largest city, The New York Times found. The groups are mostly “ hometown associations ” of people hailing from the same town or province in China.... Some have been around for more than a century, while dozens of others have sprung up over the past decade.... Some group leaders have family or business in China and fear the consequences of bucking its authorit