{"id":10741,"date":"2026-05-29T21:35:11","date_gmt":"2026-05-29T21:35:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/siliconvalleymovingpost.com\/?p=10741"},"modified":"2026-05-29T21:35:11","modified_gmt":"2026-05-29T21:35:11","slug":"former-southern-california-mayor-pleads-guilty-to-secretly-acting-as-agent-of-chinese-government","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/siliconvalleymovingpost.com\/?p=10741","title":{"rendered":"Former Southern California mayor pleads guilty to secretly acting as agent of Chinese government"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

By JAIMIE DING<\/strong><\/p>\n

LOS ANGELES (AP) \u2014 A former Southern California mayor pleaded guilty Friday to acting as an illegal agent of the Chinese government.<\/p>\n

Read more Ex-Arcadia mayor pleads guilty to working as agent of China<\/a><\/p>\n

Eileen Wang, who stepped down as the mayor of Arcadia earlier this month, was charged in April with one count of acting in the United States as an illegal agent of a foreign government. She pleaded guilty to doing the bidding of Chinese officials by sharing articles favorable to Beijing, without prior notification to the U.S. government as required by law.<\/p>\n

The 56-year-old was elected in November 2022 to a five-person city council, from which the mayor is selected on a rotating basis. Federal prosecutors say Wang\u2019s illegal conduct occurred from late 2020 to 2022. Arcadia city officials and Wang\u2019s attorneys have said it ended before she took office.<\/p>\n

Arcadia is located about 13 miles northeast of Los Angeles. The city of about 53,000 is majority Asian and has a high concentration of Chinese residents.<\/p>\n

Wang appeared in downtown LA federal court to enter her plea. The hearing included procedural questions from U.S. District Judge Wesley Hsu to ensure Wang understood her rights and the consequences of her guilty plea. A Mandarin interpreter was present but Wang said she did not need their assistance.<\/p>\n

Wang was allowed to remain out on a $25,000 bond until her sentencing on Oct. 6. She faces up to 10 years in prison and three years of supervised release.<\/p>\n

According to her plea agreement, Wang and her fianc\u00e9 at the time, Yaoning \u201cMike\u201d Sun, worked on behalf of government officials for the People\u2019s Republic of China by promoting their propaganda on a website called U.S. News Center.<\/p>\n

\n<\/div>\n

Sun is serving a four-year sentence after he pleaded guilty to the same charge last October. He was also listed in campaign filings as the treasurer for Wang\u2019s 2022 election campaign.<\/p>\n

Read more Capistrano Valley High\u2019s new stadium to host 2026 graduation, future games<\/a><\/p>\n

In one instance in June 2021, a government official sent Wang a link to a letter to the editor published in the Los Angeles Times written by the consul general of the People\u2019s Republic of China in Los Angeles.<\/p>\n

The piece refuted reports of the persecution, forced labor, and abuse of Uyghurs, the Turkic ethnic minority, in China\u2019s Xinjiang province, stating, \u201cThere has never been genocide in Xinjiang or forced labor in the region\u2019s cotton fields or any other sector.\u201d<\/p>\n

Within minutes, Wang shared the link on her website.<\/p>\n

\n<\/div>\n

The U.S. and several other countries have declared that Beijing\u2019s policies against the Uyghurs amounted to genocide and crimes against humanity.<\/p>\n

At the time, Wang was engaged to Sun, her attorneys said. She has said that relationship ended in spring 2024. A statement they released after her resignation references \u201cher trust and love for apparently the wrong person who ultimately led her astray.\u201d<\/p>\n

Residents and former Arcadia elected officials have said Wang should have been asked to resign after she came under FBI investigation for Sun\u2019s case.<\/p>\n

Acting mayor Paul Cheng said he and other councilmembers\u2019 hands were tied at the time. The city charter only empowers them to remove a fellow councilmember if they\u2019ve been convicted of a crime, he said, which Wang had not at the time.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf there is a federal investigation that is in place, we are not investigators and to politicize an issue only impacts whatever federal investigation is out there,\u201d Cheng said.<\/p>\n

Read more US adult cigarette smoking rate hits another all-time low<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Eileen Wang, former mayor of Arcadia, California, pleaded guilty to serving as an illegal agent of the Chinese government.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":10740,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[43,2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10741","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-based-on-facts-either-observed-and-verified-directly-by-the-reporter-or-reported-and-verified-from-knowledgeable-sources","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\nFormer Southern California mayor pleads guilty to secretly acting as agent of Chinese government - Silicon Valley Moving Post<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/siliconvalleymovingpost.com\/?p=10741\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Former Southern California mayor pleads guilty to secretly acting as agent of Chinese government - 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