Mayor in California city to plead guilty to acting as China’s agent

The mayor of the Los Angeles-area city of Arcadia, located in the US state of California, has resigned and will plead guilty to illegally acting as an agent of China, authorities said Monday.

“By her own admission, Eileen Wang secretly served the interests of the Chinese government,” said Assistant Director Roman Rozhavsky of the FBI’s Counterintelligence and Espionage Division.

“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,” he added, according to a statement by the US Attorney’s Office in Los Angeles.

Eileen Wang, elected mayor of the 56,000-person city in 2022, appeared in federal court Monday and was released on a $25,000 bond, according to NBC News. She was charged with acting in the US as an illegal agent of a foreign government and agreed to plead guilty later.

Prosecutors said Wang and another man, Yaoning Mike Sun, promoted “pro-PRC propaganda” in the US through a website called “US News Center.” PRC refers to the People’s Republic of China.

Sun pleaded guilty in October to acting as a foreign agent and is serving a four-year prison sentence, the US attorney’s office said.

Wang’s plea agreement says she admitted acting as an agent of China’s government without notifying the US attorney general, as required.

The agreement states Wang and Sun “received and executed directives from PRC government officials to post pro-PRC content on the website” and at times sought approval from Chinese officials before publishing content.

Prosecutors also allege that in November 2021, John Chen — described as a senior Chinese government official — asked Wang to post an item, writing: “This is what the Ministry of Foreign Affairs wants to send,” according to the US attorney’s office.

Chen was sentenced to 20 months in prison in November 2024 after pleading guilty to bribery and acting as an unregistered agent of China.