Mayor of California city resigns over charges of being a foreign agent of China

Eileen Wang, the mayor of a southern California city, resigned suddenly on Monday after the US Department of Justice (DoJ) announced she had been charged with acting as an illegal foreign agent of China. Wang, 58, agreed to plead guilty to the felony count and could face a sentence of 10 years in prison.“Individuals in our country who covertly do the bidding of foreign governments undermine our democracy,” said Bill Essayli, an assistant US attorney. “This plea agreement is the latest success in our determination to defend the homeland against China’s efforts to corrupt our institutions.”According to her plea agreement, Wang and Yaoning “Mike” Sun, 65, of Chino Hills, worked with the Peoples’ Republic of China to promote the country’s interests through pro-PRC propaganda posted to a website they ran, US News Center, which billed itself as a news source for the local Chinese American community, the Department of Justice said. Wang, who was elected to the city council in November 2022, announced she was vacating her position as mayor hours after the plea deal was unsealed. Officials in Arcadia, a Los Angeles county city of about 54,000, told the Los Angeles Times that the conduct described by federal officials happened before Wang was elected. A message from Dominic Lazzaretto, Arcadia city manager, was posted on the city’s website. “The allegations at the center of this case, that a foreign government sought to exert influence over a local elected official, are deeply troubling. We take them seriously.“We want to be clear: this investigation concerns individual conduct, and the charges are for conduct that ceased after Ms Wang was sworn into office in December 2022. Following an internal review, we can confirm that no City finances, staff, or decision-making processes were involved,” Lazzaretto’s statement read. He said the city council will select a mayor and mayor pro tem from the remaining council members at their next meeting.“Individuals elected to public office in the United States should act only for the people of the United States that they represent,” said John A Eisenberg, assistant attorney general for national security. “It is deeply concerning that someone who previously received and executed directives from PRC government officials is now in a position of public trust at all, but particularly so because that relationship with that foreign government had never been disclosed.”In one example of Wang’s actions cited by the DoJ, a PRC official contacted Wang and others in a June 2021 encrypted WeChat conversation with pre-written news articles. The stories included an essay in the Los Angeles Times written by PRC officials 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[.]”Within minutes, Wang posted the article to US News Center and responded to the PRC official with a link to the article on her website. The others in the group chat did the same. The PRC official responded: “So fast, thank you everyone.”Wang also communicated in November 2021 with John Chen, a high-level member of PRC intelligence who had a direct line to Xi Jinping, the Chinese president, according to the DoJ. Wang asked Chen to post a “news” article from her website, and wrote: “This is what the Ministry of Foreign Affairs wants to send.”Chen, of Chino, California, pleaded guilty in November 2024 to acting as an illegal agent of China and conspiracy to bribe a public official and was sentenced to 20 months in federal prison. Sun was arrested in December 2024 and pleaded guilty to acting as an illegal agent of a foreign country. He was sentenced in February to four years in federal prison.