The former mayor of Arcadia, California, pleaded guilty to one count of acting as an illegal agent of the Chinese government within the United States on Friday.
Eileen Wang appeared in federal court in Los Angeles, where she delivered the expected guilty plea. She allegedly helped promote pro-China propaganda in the U.S. by sharing prewritten articles favorable to Beijing without notifying the federal government.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of California announced the charge on May 11, after which Wang immediately resigned.
“Individuals in our country who covertly do the bidding of foreign governments undermine our democracy,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli said at the time. “This plea agreement is the latest success in our determination to defend the homeland against China’s efforts to corrupt our institutions.”
The Department of Justice says her illegal conduct occurred from late 2020 to 2022. Shortly thereafter, she assumed office.
In 2022, Wang switched to the Democratic Party as she entered public office. Before that year, she was a registered Republican.
Wang and Yaoning “Mike” Sun worked on behalf of Chinese officials to promote Beijing’s propaganda on the U.S. News Center website. The two were engaged at the time, but they split in spring 2024. Sun was handed a four-year prison sentence in February after he pleaded guilty in October to acting as an illegal foreign agent.
In June 2021, a Chinese official sent a Los Angeles Times article written by the consul general of the People’s Republic of China in Los Angeles to Wang through the encrypted messaging app WeChat. She then posted it on her website. The piece dismissed allegations of genocide and forced labor in China’s Xinjiang province, where Uyghur Muslims are imprisoned.
“There has never been genocide in Xinjiang or forced labor in the region’s cotton fields or any other sector,” the article stated.
CALIFORNIA MAYOR EILEEN WANG CHARGED WITH ACTING AS CHINESE AGENT
Wang is set to be sentenced on Oct. 6. The felony count comes with a statutory maximum sentence of 10 years in federal prison.
The former mayor was first elected to the Arcadia City Council in November 2022. With a total population of 53,000 to 55,000 residents, Arcadia has a roughly 40% concentration of Chinese people.
