Arcadia mayor, accused of acting as foreign agent for China, strikes deal with feds
The mayor of Arcadia, facing charges of acting as an illegal foreign agent of China, has reached an agreement to resolve the case, according to a federal plea agreement unsealed Monday.
Eileen Wang, who was elected to the City Council in November 2022, entered into a plea agreement with prosecutors over charges that she acted under the control of the People’s Republic of China to promote propaganda in the U.S. between 2020 and 2022, according to the unsealed court filing.
Wang, who admitted to all charges in the plea agreement, is scheduled for arraignment Monday afternoon in downtown Los Angeles. Her lawyer declined to comment. The maximum sentence for the charge is 10 years in prison.
From late 2020 through at least 2022, Wang worked with Yaoning “Mike” Sun, who was her fiance at the time, to run a website called U.S. News Center that branded itself as a news source for Chinese Americans, according to the agreement. Both Wang and Sun “executed directives” from Chinese government officials, posting requested articles and reporting back with screenshots showing how many people viewed the stories, according to the unsealed agreement.
On June 10, 2021, the agreement says, Wang received a message from a government official about “China’s Stance on the Xinjiang Issue.”
At the time, the Chinese government was carrying out a campaign of incarceration, persecution and “reeducation” of Uyghurs in the Xinjiang province.
“There is no genocide in Xinjiang; there is no such thing as ‘forced labor’ in any production activity, including cotton production. Spreading such rumor is to defame China, destroy Xinjiang’s safety and stability,” read the message from the Chinese government official, according to the plea agreement.
Minutes after receiving the link, Wang posted the article on her website and responded to the Chinese government official with a link to the article on her website, according to the court filing.
“So fast, thank you everyone,” the government official responded, the court records show.
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Prosecutors also say Wang edited articles at the request of officials and shared information showing the reach of the posts.
“Thank you leader,” she wrote on Aug. 20, 2021, after being complimented for a post that was viewed more than 15,000 times, according to the plea agreement.
Wang never disclosed that the Chinese government had directed her to post the content, according to court documents.
Prosecutors charged Sun in December 2024 with conspiracy and acting as an illegal agent of a foreign government. Wang said her relationship with Sun ended in the spring of 2024.
Sun had also served as campaign manager for her City Council campaign. Prosecutors accused Sun and his Chinese government contacts of cultivating Wang in hopes that she would rise in politics and help them strengthen China’s influence in California.
“We broke up the fiance relationship,” Wang told the City Council after he was charged. “We keep the friendship.”
Facing calls for her resignation at the time, Wang had vowed not to step away from the council, emphasizing that she was “not responsible for the action of others.”
Wang said in a 2024 interview that she moved to Southern California from China 30 years ago. Her mother was a Chinese medicine and acupuncture doctor and her father was a physician in Sichuan province before working at USC, she said.
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