{"id":4854,"date":"2026-05-11T23:01:20","date_gmt":"2026-05-11T23:01:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/siliconvalleymovingpost.com\/?p=4854"},"modified":"2026-05-11T23:01:20","modified_gmt":"2026-05-11T23:01:20","slug":"arcadia-mayor-charged-with-acting-as-chinese-agent-resigns","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/siliconvalleymovingpost.com\/?p=4854","title":{"rendered":"Arcadia mayor, charged with acting as Chinese agent, resigns"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Arcadia Mayor Eileen Wang resigned from the City Council on Monday, May 11, after federal authorities charged her with acting as an agent of the Chinese government.<\/p>\n

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Wang, 58, is charged with one count of acting in the United States as an illegal agent of a foreign government, according to the U.S. Department of Justice. She has agreed to plead guilty in the coming weeks to the felony count, which comes with a statutory maximum sentence of 10 years in federal prison, as part of a plea agreement.<\/p>\n

Federal law requires foreign agents to notify the attorney general.<\/p>\n

Wang, along with Yaoning \u201cMike\u201d Sun, 65, of Chino Hills, operated the U.S. News Center, a website claiming to be a news source for local Chinese Americans. From 2020 through 2022, Wang and Sun received and executed \u201cdirectives\u201d to post content on the website from government officials within the People\u2019s Republic of China.<\/p>\n

Sun, who acted as Wang\u2019s campaign adviser, is serving a four-year federal prison sentence after he pleaded guilty to the same charge in October. At one point, Sun surveilled the president of Taiwan during a visit to Southern California and sent pictures of protesters to his handlers, prosecutors said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe allegations at the center of this case, that a foreign government sought to exert influence over a local elected official, are deeply troubling,\u201d Arcadia City Manager Dominic Lazzaretto said in a statement. \u201cWe take them seriously.\u201d<\/p>\n

Arcadia Deputy City Manager Justine Bruno said that after Sun was arrested in December 2024, the city conducted an internal review .<\/p>\n

\u201cBased on that review, the City determined that no City finances, staff, or decision-making processes were impacted in any way,\u201d Bruno said in an email.<\/p>\n

\n<\/div>\n

In addition, Bruno said the charges against Wang stem from activities before her time in office.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe City of Arcadia remains available to assist the FBI if requested, although no such request has been made,\u201d Bruno said. \u201cNo other members of the City Council are under investigation, and City services have continued without interruption.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wang was elected to the Arcadia City Council in November 2022 and her term is set to expire in November. The City Council, which rotates the largely ceremonial position of mayor each year, plans to select a new mayor and to begin discussions about filling Wang\u2019s seat at its next meeting.<\/p>\n

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Prosecutors allege Chinese officials used WeChat, an encrypted messenger, to send Wang and others prewritten articles to post on the website, including one in 2021 that denied the existence of forced labor camps in the Xinjiang region.<\/p>\n

\n<\/div>\n

That same year, the United States accused the PRC of detaining more than a million \u201cUyghurs, ethnic Kazakhs, Hui, and members of other Muslim groups, as well as some Christians, in specially built internment camps or converted detention facilities\u201d in the Xinjiang region and subjecting them to \u201cforced disappearance, torture, other physical and psychological abuse, including forced sterilization and sexual abuse, forced labor, political indoctrination, and prolonged detention without trial because of their religion and ethnicity,\u201d according to the U.S. Department of State\u2019s website.<\/p>\n

Minutes after receiving the article denying the camps in Xinjiang, Wang posted it to the U.S. News Center\u2019s website and responded to the PRC official with a link. The official responded: \u201cSo fast, thank you everyone,\u201d according to prosecutors.<\/p>\n

Later, Wang made edits to the article at the official\u2019s request and sent a screenshot showing it received 15,128 views. After she received praise, she wrote back: \u201cThank you leader.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wang admitted in her plea agreement that she did not notify the attorney general that she was acting as an agent of the PRC and did not disclose on her website that some of the content had been posted at the direction of members of the PRC government, prosecutors said.<\/p>\n

\u201cBy her own admission, Eileen Wang secretly served the interests of the Chinese government,\u201d said Assistant Director Roman Rozhavsky of the FBI\u2019s Counterintelligence and Espionage Division in a statement. \u201cLet this serve as a clear warning: Individuals who act on behalf of foreign governments to influence our democracy will be identified, investigated and brought to justice.\u201d<\/p>\n

The federal investigation found that Wang communicated with John Chen, a high-level member of the PRC\u2019s intelligence apparatus who regularly attended elite Chinese Community Party functions and met personally with President Xi Jinping, according to court documents. Wang asked Chen to post a \u201cnews\u201d article from her website, and wrote, \u201cThis is what the Ministry of Foreign Affairs wants to send,\u201d prosecutors alleged.<\/p>\n

Chen received a 20-month prison sentence in November 2024 after pleading guilty to acting as an illegal agent and conspiracy to bribe a public official.<\/p>\n

Wang could not immediately be reached for comment Monday afternoon. A number listed for her on the Los Angeles County registrar-recorder\u2019s list of November 2022 general election candidates went to voicemail.<\/p>\n

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Eileen Wang, 58, published news articles sent by the People’s Republic of China that were considered propaganda.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4853,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4854","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-facts","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\nArcadia mayor, charged with acting as Chinese agent, resigns - 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=4854\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Arcadia mayor, charged with acting as Chinese agent, resigns - Silicon Valley Moving Post\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Eileen Wang, 58, published news articles sent by the People's Republic of China that were considered propaganda.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/siliconvalleymovingpost.com\/?p=4854\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Silicon Valley Moving Post\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2026-05-11T23:01:20+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"admin\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"admin\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"4 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/siliconvalleymovingpost.com\\\/?p=4854#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/siliconvalleymovingpost.com\\\/?p=4854\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"admin\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/siliconvalleymovingpost.com\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/636e2e5a10a21cf87fe6eb5951e8a6b7\"},\"headline\":\"Arcadia mayor, charged with acting as Chinese agent, resigns\",\"datePublished\":\"2026-05-11T23:01:20+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/siliconvalleymovingpost.com\\\/?p=4854\"},\"wordCount\":870,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/siliconvalleymovingpost.com\\\/?p=4854#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/siliconvalleymovingpost.com\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2026\\\/05\\\/e6aabd0551a2692e6c6b2c9f7ae29431.webp\",\"articleSection\":[\"Facts\",\"News\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/siliconvalleymovingpost.com\\\/?p=4854#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/siliconvalleymovingpost.com\\\/?p=4854\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/siliconvalleymovingpost.com\\\/?p=4854\",\"name\":\"Arcadia mayor, charged with acting as Chinese agent, resigns - 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