California Mayor Admits to Being Chinese Agent

The mayor of Arcadia, California, has agreed with the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) to plead guilty to acting as an agent for the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).

Eileen Wang, who resigned within hours of her case going public on May 11, is accused of secretly carrying out tasks for the CCP between 2020 and 2022. In November 2022, she was elected to the Arcadia City Council.

“All Americans should be alarmed to learn an elected official was brazenly spreading propaganda on behalf of the Chinese government,” Patrick Grandy, assistant director in charge of the FBI’s Los Angeles Office, said.

Wang made her first appearance on May 11 in a U.S. District Court in downtown Los Angeles, where the hearing was done through a Mandarin-language interpreter. Her bond was set at $25,000.

The DOJ said Wang will formally enter her guilty plea at a later date.

As for Sun, he was charged with acting as an illegal agent for a foreign government in December 2024 and pleaded guilty in October 2025. The 65-year-old was sentenced in February to four years in federal prison.

Yaoning ‘Mike’ Sun

From at least 2022 to January 2024, Sun, who once served in the People’s Liberation Army, acted as a Chinese agent, according to the DOJ.

At the direction of the CCP, Sun promoted the regime’s interests and pro-China propaganda in the United States, while helping elect a politician who was identified in his court documents as “Individual 1.”

“Individual 1” is Wang, who was elected to the Arcadia City Council in November 2022. The mayoral position rotates among the five-person governing body, and Wang’s term began in February.

Sun helped run a Chinese website from 2020 through 2023 purportedly for the local Chinese American community, but he was carrying out directives from the CCP to post pro-regime content, the release states.

In December 2022, the 65-year-old attended a meeting with a “team dedicated” to the CCP’s interests, according to his plea agreement.

Sun drafted a report for the CCP in February 2023, asking for more money and tasks. The man also detailed his time living in the United States to “persist in resisting any hostile forces that undermine the friendship of U.S.–China relations, and Chinese secessionist forces.”

“Most of all, during the 2022 U.S. midterm elections, I orchestrated and organized my team to win the election for city council,” Sun said in this report, referring to Wang as a “new political star.”

The man continued, discussing “anti-China forces” causing issues. In the United States, he proposed “using part of our Los Angeles organization’s professional core team” to counteract those forces.

Sun’s report requested $80,000 from the CCP to fund a pro-China demonstration during a Fourth of July parade in Washington.

In April 2023, the convicted Chinese agent also spied on then-President of Taiwan, Tsai Ing-Wen, during her visit to Southern California, according to the release. He reported her movements directly to regime officials, including real-time updates to an official at the CCP’s consulate general in Los Angeles.

Sun worked covertly as a Chinese operative alongside another man, John Chen, who is a high-level member of the CCP intelligence sector.

Chen regularly attended elite regime functions and met personally with CCP leader Xi Jinping.

“[Sun] served as Chen’s right-hand man in the United States for decades,” prosecutors said.

Chen pleaded guilty to acting as an illegal agent for China and conspiracy to bribe an official. He was sentenced in November 2024 to 20 months in federal prison. A month later, Sun was charged.

Eileen Wang

Even before being elected to the city council in 2022 with help from a now-convicted Chinese agent, Wang was allegedly taking directions from the CCP, beginning in 2020 through 2022 and promoted pro-regime propaganda alongside Sun.

DOJ prosecutors said Wang helped Sun run their news site, called U.S. News Center and marketed for local Chinese Americans, for disseminating CCP propaganda.

In June 2021, a regime official contacted Wang and others through Chinese encrypted messaging platform WeChat with pre-written news articles that painted the CCP in a positive light.

One message included an article published in the Los Angeles Times, reading: “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.”

Wang reposted the article on her own website then sent the link back to the CCP official, to which he responded, “So fast, thank you everyone.”

According to the DOJ, Wang was editing articles at the CCP official’s request and sending screenshots to show how many views the webpage was getting.

Wang faces up to 10 years in prison, a three-year period of supervised release, and at least $250,000 in fines.

Arcadia City Manager Dominic Lazzaretto said no city finances or staff were involved and that Wang’s alleged conduct as a Chinese agent ceased after she was sworn onto the city council.

—Troy Myers; Stacy Robinson; Reuters contributed to this report.

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