A Southern California mayor has stepped down after admitting to a rather unusual side hustle: acting as an illegal agent for the Chinese government.
Videos by Suggest
Eileen Wang, the mayor of Arcadia, was charged in April for acting as an unregistered agent for the Chinese government… a gig that’s definitely not on the list of approved mayoral duties. According to reports from outlets like Time and CNN, Wang was accused of sharing articles favorable to Beijing on behalf of Chinese officials without notifying the U.S. government, as required by law.
“Mayor Wang admitted to acting as a foreign agent from at least 2020 through 2022 – promoting PRC propaganda in the U.S. and acting at PRC’s direction to promote their interests,” FBI Director Kash Patel wrote on X. “FBI and our federal partners continue to move aggressively to root out this kind of influence in American institutions all over the country.”
Wang, 58, was elected to the five-person city council in November 2022. The mayor is selected from the council on a rotating basis. City Manager Dominic Lazzaretto confirmed in a news release that no city finances or staff were involved in the matter.
“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,” he explained, per CNN.
Wang has pleaded guilty to the felony charge, which could land her up to 10 years in federal prison.
Meanwhile, Arcadia is a city of about 53,000 located approximately 13 miles northeast of Los Angeles. It has a majority Asian population, with a high concentration of Chinese residents.
California Mayor Acknowledges ‘Past Personal Mistakes’ After Admitting to Acting as Chinese Agent
Her attorneys stated that she accepts full responsibility for her “past personal mistakes,” which, to be fair, is one way to describe allegedly acting as an illegal agent for a foreign government while holding public office.
“She apologizes and is sorry for the mistakes she has made in her personal life,” Wang’s attorneys Jason Liang and Brian Sun explained in a statement. “Her love and devotion for the Arcadia community have not changed and did not waver.”
According to her plea agreement, from 2020 to 2022, Wang and her colleague, Yaoning “Mike” Sun, worked for Chinese government officials to promote pro-PRC propaganda in the U.S. Sun, who was the treasurer for Wang’s 2022 election campaign, is currently serving a four-year sentence after pleading guilty to the same charge last year.
Wang and Sun ran the U.S. News Center website, targeting the Chinese American community, and were directed by Chinese government officials to publish pro-PRC content. For example, in June 2021, a government official instructed Wang to post a letter from the PRC’s consul general in Los Angeles, which denied reports of genocide and forced labor of Uyghurs in Xinjiang.
Wang shared the link on her news site within minutes.
The U.S. and several other countries have declared Beijing’s policies against the Uyghurs to be genocide and crimes against humanity.
According to her attorneys, Wang was engaged to Sun at the time of the offenses, a relationship she said ended in spring 2024. Her legal team stated her actions were influenced by “her trust and love for apparently the wrong person, who ultimately led her astray.”
Wang also communicated with John Chen, another convicted agent for the Chinese government.