Eileen Wang, the mayor of Arcadia, Calif., resigned on Monday after federal prosecutors announced they had charged her with acting as an illegal agent of the Chinese government. She will plead guilty to the charge, according to a plea deal unsealed the same day.
The felony charge comes with a potential sentence of up to 10 years in prison.
The court document outlined Ms. Wang’s efforts, beginning in late 2020 and continuing until at least the end of 2022, to operate a purported news website called U.S. News Center that circulated pro-China content at the direction of Chinese government officials. Ms. Wang covertly worked with a man in Southern California named Mike Sun, a Chinese national, to disseminate the information.
Mr. Sun, who is also known as Yaoning Sun, was sentenced in February to four years in prison for his role in the operation. He was previously engaged to Ms. Wang and had worked on her election campaign as the treasurer, according to public records. Ms. Wang, 58, was elected in November 2022 to the Arcadia City Council, and the mayor is selected from the five-person council on a rotating basis.
“Individuals in our country who covertly do the bidding of foreign governments undermine our democracy,” Bill Essayli, the first assistant U.S. attorney for the Central District of California, said in a statement. “This plea agreement is the latest success in our determination to defend the homeland against China’s efforts to corrupt our institutions.”
The Chinese government has exerted influence over local elections across the United States to advance its interests, targeting the Chinese American community in particular. In some cases, federal investigators have arrested the leaders of covert operations.
According to the plea agreement, Ms. Wang posted propaganda directed to a Chinese American audience. In one example, Ms. Wang was told through an encrypted message to publish an essay “explaining China’s stance on the Xinjiang issue — there is no genocide in Xinjiang; there is no such thing as ‘forced labor’ in any production activity, including cotton production,” the message read. “Spreading such rumor is to defame China, destroy Xinjiang’s safety and stability, weaken local economy, suppress China’s development.”
