Arcadia Mayor Eileen Wang Pleads Guilty to Acting as Illegal Agent for China

Eileen Wang, the mayor of Arcadia, California, agreed to plead guilty after the U.S. Department of Justice charged her with acting as an illegal foreign agent for China, and she resigned Monday.

“California mayor charged with acting as illegal agent for China Eileen Wang agreed to plead guilty, the Justice Department said”

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Wang, 58, worked with Yaoning “Mike” Sun, 65, to operate a website called U.S. News Center that purported to be a news source for the local Chinese-American community, according to the DOJ.

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The DOJ said Wang and Sun “received and executed directives from PRC government officials to post pro-PRC content on the website,” and sometimes sought approval from PRC officials to circulate other pro-PRC content.

Assistant Attorney General for National Security John A. Eisenberg said, “It is deeply concerning that someone who previously received and executed directives from PRC government officials is now in a position of public trust at all.”

Prosecutors described an example from June 2021 in which PRC officials contacted Wang through encrypted WeChat messages to deliver prewritten news articles, and Wang then posted the article on her own website.

In that episode, the PRC-drafted essay published in the Los Angeles Times stated, “There is no genocide in Xinjiang; there is no such thing as ‘forced labor’ in any production activity, including cotton production.”

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Minutes later, the PRC official replied, “So fast, thank you everyone,” as Wang and others shared the content in the group chat.

The Los Angeles Times reported that Wang appeared in federal court in downtown Los Angeles, where a judge instructed her lawyers to set a date when she would formally enter a guilty plea, and the maximum sentence for the charge is 10 years in prison.

NBC News reported that Wang appeared in federal court Monday and was released on a $25,000 bond, after being charged with one count of acting in the U.S. as an illegal agent of a foreign government.

Prosecutors asked the judge to order Wang to refrain from any communication with the Chinese government, including consular officials in the U.S., according to the Los Angeles Times.

Arcadia officials said the allegations concerned individual conduct and that “no city finances, staff or decision-making processes were involved,” and the city manager Dominic Lazzaretto said the city would begin the process of selecting someone to step in as mayor at the next City Council meeting.

The BBC said Wang could face a sentence of up to 10 years in prison and that she agreed to plead guilty to the felony count after Arcadia City Council said she resigned from her post on Monday.