Eileen Wang served as mayor of Arcadia, Calif., until she resigned on May 11. The 58-year-old city leader reached a federal plea deal and agreed to plead guilty to one count of acting as an illegal agent of the People's Republic of China. The felony carries a maximum sentence of 10 years in federal prison.
NEW: Eileen Wang, the mayor of Arcadia, California, has been charged with acting as an illegal foreign agent for China, the Justice Department announced on Monday.
— ABC News (@ABC) May 11, 2026
Wang agreed to plead guilty, the Justice Department said. https://t.co/61VZ41RJMF
From late 2020 through 2022, Wang worked with Yaoning “Mike” Sun, her then-fiancé, campaign treasurer, and close political adviser, to promote Chinese government interests.
As Newser reports, the pair worked well together.
Prosecutors said Wang and an associate, Yaoning "Mike" Sun, 65, advanced the interests of the People's Republic of China by pushing Beijing-approved narratives through media aimed at Chinese Americans in Southern California, including a platform called the US News Center. According to court filings, Chinese officials sent Wang prewritten material via encrypted WeChat messages, including a 2021 essay denying abuses against Uyghurs and other minorities in Xinjiang. Prosecutors say Wang quickly posted the piece on her own site and shared it with others, then received thanks from the official. In another instance that year, Wang and three others distributed the same article on their respective news sites after coordination in the WeChat group, prosecutors said.
In November 2021, prosecutors said, she worked with a senior Chinese intelligence contact in California who had direct access to President Xi Jinping. That official, John Chen, earlier pleaded guilty and received a 20-month sentence in a related case. Sun was sentenced to four years in prison after his own guilty plea in 2025. Wang won a seat on the Arcadia City Council in November 2022; the council rotates the mayor's position. Her city biography, still posted Monday, describes her as the daughter of immigrants. "Individuals elected to public office in the United States should act only for the people of the United States that they represent," Assistant Attorney General for National Security John Eisenberg said. Arcadia's government said no city funds, staff, or policy decisions were implicated.
The pair operated U.S. News Center, a website aimed at Arcadia's Chinese American community. Chinese officials sent them prewritten articles through WeChat and directed them to post content defending Beijing's policies and denying human rights abuses in Xinjiang. Wang posted one article within minutes of receiving it, sent proof back to the Chinese official, and received praise for the speed.
Sun is already serving a four-year federal prison sentence after pleading guilty in October 2025 to acting as an illegal agent of a foreign government. As the AP reports, he helped Wan win her 2022 Arcadia City Council race while serving as her campaign treasurer and adviser.
A California man has been sentenced to four years in prison for acting as an illegal agent for the Chinese government while working as a campaign adviser for a local politician.
Yaoning “Mike” Sun, 65, was sentenced Monday in federal court in Los Angeles after pleading guilty last year in a deal with prosecutors. Under the agreement, Sun acknowledged acting as a foreign agent on behalf of the People’s Republic of China from 2022 to 2024 without notifying the U.S. attorney general as required by law.
“When Americans vote for elected officials, they expect them to represent the interests of their constituents – not those of a foreign adversary like the Chinese government,” Roman Rozhavsky, assistant director of the FBI’s counterintelligence and espionage division, said in a statement. Federal prosecutors had asked for a five-year sentence for Sun.
Sun’s lawyer, Adam Olin, declined to comment. In court papers, Olin asked for Sun to be sentenced to time served after spending more than a year in custody, contending his client lived a law-abiding life in the United States since moving from China in 1996.
During that same period, Sun received instructions from Chinese officials and reported back on efforts to place a friendly voice in a local office.
Beijing wanted influence, and Sun helped deliver it through a city election most Americans would've never imagined was on China's radar.
Wang and Sun also coordinated with John Chen, a high-level contact tied to China's intelligence apparatus. Chen received a 20-month federal sentence in November 2024 after pleading guilty in New York to acting as an illegal agent of the PRC and conspiracy to bribe a public official.
Federal documents say Wang asked Chen to post material from her website and wrote, “This is what the Ministry of Foreign Affairs wants to send.”
Subtle as a brick through a window, right?
Federal officials said Wang failed to notify the attorney general that she acted as an agent of the PRC. She also failed to disclose on her website that some content had been posted at the direction of Chinese government officials. The case doesn't accuse Arcadia city staff of wrongdoing or say city funds were used after Wang took office.
Still, voters had a right to know whether a local official had previously taken orders from a foreign government before she rotated into the mayor's chair.
Good.
It's about time people who work for China face real consequences. Americans argue plenty among themselves, and Lord knows city councils can turn potholes and parking permits into hand-to-hand combat. But those fights still belong to the people who live here, pay taxes here, raise families here, and expect local leaders to answer to them, not to Beijing.
Arcadia residents deserved better than secret foreign influence wrapped in neighborhood politics. So did every voter who assumed a city council race was about local needs rather than international power games.
Wang's resignation removes her from office, but the larger warning remains. China doesn't need to win every battle in Washington when it can quietly cultivate voices in local government, community media, and ethnic outreach.
Federal law finally caught up here, and the result should echo well beyond Southern California. Public office is supposed to carry one loyalty: the United States and the people represented by that office.
Anybody who trades that duty for secret foreign directives should meet the same cold machinery of justice Wang now faces.
China’s influence operations don’t always arrive wearing uniforms or carrying briefcases stamped “spy.” Sometimes they show up through local politics, community websites, and familiar faces who quietly push a foreign government’s message while voters are kept in the dark. Join PJ Media VIP today and use promo code FIGHT to get 60% off your subscription.
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