California: Arcadia mayor resigns after admitting to acting as a covert agent for China

The mayor of Arcadia (California), Eileen Wang, resigned Monday moments after the State Department (DoJ) announced charges against her for acting as an illegal agent of the Chinese government.

Wang, 58, who took office as mayor a few months ago, agreed to plead guilty to a federal charge of acting as an agent of a foreign government without registering with U.S. authorities. The offense could lead to 10 years in prison.

The former mayor admitted in her plea agreement that she failed to notify the attorney general that she was acting as an agent of China in the U.S., that she was on U.S. soil while conducting these activities and that she failed to disclose on her website that some of the content was posted under direct instructions from the Chinese government.

According to the indictment, between 2020 and 2022 Wang and her then-fiancé operated a website called US News Center, which published propaganda favorable to the Chinese communist regime. Authorities claim it received direct orders from regime officials via WeChat to deny the existence of human rights abuses in the Xinjiang region and other sensitive issues.

Chinese propaganda ready to copy and paste: this is how Wang operated

According to a release from the DoJ, in June 2021, a Chinese official contacted Wang and others with news already redacted, including an essay written by a People's Republic of China (PRC) official in Los Angeles Times that stated: "China’s Stance on the Xinjiang Issue – There is no genocide in Xinjiang; there is no such thing as ‘forced labor’ in any production activity, including cotton production. Spreading such rumor to do defame China, destroy Xinjiang’s safety and stability, weaken local economy, suppress China’s development[.]"

Minutes later, Wang posted the article on her own website and sent the Chinese official a link to the text posted on her page. The other participants in the group chat did the same. The PRC official replied, "So fast, thank you everyone."

In August 2021, Wang and three other members of the same group chat shared links to the same article on their respective "news" websites, after which the PRC official thanked them for their "reporting."

In November 2021, Wang contacted John Chen, a senior Chinese intelligence official close to President Xi Jinping, and asked him to post a "news" article from her website, and wrote: "This is what the Ministry of Foreign Affairs wants to send."

FBI warns those acting for foreign governments

"By her own admission, Eileen Wang secretly served the interests of the Chinese government," said Roman Rozhavsky, deputy director of the Counterintelligence and Espionage Division of the FBI. "Let 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."

This Monday, Wang appeared in federal court in Los Angeles, where her bail was set at $25,000. Her lawyer confirmed that she already has a plea agreement with prosecutors.