California mayor unmasked as ‘illegal agent’ for China
LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA—A mayor in Southern California has resigned and agreed to plead guilty of acting as an illegal agent for the Chinese government, officials said Monday.
Eileen Wang, mayor of the city of Arcadia, was charged in April with one count of acting as an illegal agent of a foreign government. She was accused of doing the bidding of Chinese officials, such as sharing articles favorable to Beijing, without prior notification to the US government as required by law.
Wang, 58, was elected in November 2022 to a five-person city council from which Arcadia’s mayor is selected on a rotating basis.
Arcadia is located about 21 kilometers northeast of Los Angeles. The city of about 53,000 is majority Asian and has a high concentration of Chinese residents.
“We want to be clear—this investigation concerns individual conduct, and the charges are for conduct that ceased after Ms. Wang was sworn into office in December 2022,” Arcadia’s city manager Dominic Lazzaretto said in a news release, adding that no city finances or staff were involved.
Federal officials said Wang had agreed to plead guilty to the felony, which comes with a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison.
Her attorneys Jason Liang and Brian Sun said she recognizes the seriousness of the charge against her.
“She apologizes and is sorry for the mistakes she has made in her personal life,” they said in a statement. “Her love and devotion for the Arcadia community have not changed and did not waver.”
Promoting propaganda
According to her plea agreement, Wang and a colleague, Yaoning “Mike” Sun, worked on behalf of officials of the People’s Republic of China (PROC) from the end of 2020 to 2022 by promoting their propaganda in the United States.
Sun is serving a four-year sentence after he pleaded guilty to the same charge in October last year. He was also listed in campaign filings as Wang’s treasurer in her 2022 election campaign.
Wang and Sun operated the news website US News Center, aimed at the Chinese American community, and were instructed by Chinese officials to post pro-PROC content.
In one instance in June 2021, a Chinese official sent Wang a link to a letter to the editor published in the Los Angeles Times written by the PROC consul general in Los Angeles. Within minutes, Wang shared the link on her news site.
The letter refuted reports of the persecution, forced labor and abuse of Uyghers in China’s Xinjiang province, stating “There has never been genocide in Xinjiang or forced labor in the region’s cotton fields or any other sector.”
The United States and several other countries had earlier declared that Beijing’s policies against the Uyghurs amounted to genocide and crimes against humanity.
Relationship
Her attorneys said Wang was engaged to Sun at that time. She has said that relationship ended in spring 2024.
Their statement references “her trust and love for apparently the wrong person who ultimately led her astray.”
Wang has also communicated with John Chen, who also pleaded guilty to being an agent for the Chinese government and was sentenced to 20 months in prison.
