A Southern California mayor has pleaded guilty to acting as an illegal agent for the People’s Republic of China, according to an announcement by the Department of Justice.
The 58-year-old Eileen Wang was elected to the five-person Arcadia city council in November 2022, where the mayor is selected on a rotating basis. She resigned Monday.
During her time in office Wang communicated with multiple now-charged illegal agents such as Yaoning “Mike” Sun, 65, who is currently serving a four-year federal prison sentence and John Chen, a high-level member of the PRC intelligence apparatus, who was sentenced in November 2024 to 20 months in federal prison.
According to the Department of Justice, Wang and her then-fiancé Sun “worked together to operate the U.S. News Center, a website that purported to be a news source for the local Chinese American community. Wang and Sun received and executed directives from PRC government officials to post pro-PRC content on the website.”
“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 in a Department of Justice press release.
Rozhavsky gave a warning to anyone considering following in Wang’s footsteps.
“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. Protecting the rule of law and the transparency of our democratic process remains at the core of the FBI’s mission, and we will continue working alongside our partners to safeguard the integrity of our elections and keep hostile actors from undermining the voices of the American people.”
Wang’s charges come with a statutory maximum sentence of 10 years in federal prison.
Her attorneys, Jason Liang and Brian Sun said in a statement that she recognizes the seriousness of the charge and accepts responsibility for “past personal mistakes.”
Her attorneys continued, “She apologizes and is sorry for the mistakes she has made in her personal life. … Her love and devotion for the Arcadia community have not changed and did not waver.”
A Warning: “This Isn’t Just Happening in Arcadia”
Lance Christensen, vice president of government affairs & education policy at the California Policy Center, shared why the case with this Arcadia mayor is only a small part of what we should be concerned about as Americans.
“This isn’t just happening in places like Arcadia. There are credible threats to our infrastructure in different places, our water systems, our electrical grid, our fuel stations and refineries … that it wouldn’t take much for China to get a grip on that and basically paralyze the United States.”
Christensen then shared a very chilling idea, that there are sleeper cells in the United States.
“It’s very likely, highly likely that we have a number of sleeper cells within the country, not just from China, but many other countries, but China makes the most sense because they have probably, this time most to gain by subverting America’s economy, our government systems, our culture and our way of life. If they can do that, then they would have no or have very little difficulty taking away the country.”
Christensen then shared what he says is part of the solution to dealing with foreign influence.
“We have to be aware of the influence of China in a lot of our public policies. So when something comes up that may have some ability for China to assert more influence, we should be aware of those things. It doesn’t mean that we can’t work with or partner with China or other communist countries when it works to our benefit or mutual benefit. But we should be more wary of those things.”
