Arcadia, CA, Mayor Federally Charged with Acting as Illegal Agent of PRC, Pleads
justice.gov“ccording to her plea agreement, from late 2020 through 2022, Wang and Yaoning “Mike” Sun, 65, of Chino Hills, worked at the direction and control of PRC government officials and coordinated with U.S.-based individuals to promote the PRC’s interests by, among other things, promoting pro-PRC propaganda in the United States. Sun is serving a four-year federal prison sentence after he pleaded guilty in October 2025 to acting as an illegal agent of a foreign government.
Wang and Sun worked together to operate 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.
For example, in June 2021, a PRC official contacted Wang and other individuals via the WeChat encrypted messaging application with pre-written news articles, including a PRC official-written essay in the 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 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.” “
Four years in prison just for posting propaganda on behalf of other countries? If that was evenly enforced a whole lot of people would be in trouble.
Indeed. I may have to remember this for the next time someone says America's freedom of speech means people don't go to jail just for posting stuff on the internet.
The difference is she was a mayor of an American city. She was an elected official in direct contact with CCP officials, and while the examples provided are more or less trivial, I would hope that she would be investigated. A US official has access to certain private information and it's not far-fetched to conceive she could be disseminating private information about, at the very least, local politics
See, it's all about the normative vs. prerogative justice system treatment where AIPAC and Kremlin mouthpieces are cool because China, Cuba, Iran, and a few other are currently "baddies" because they don't buy enough of our stuff or have special relationships.
Oh yeah, that's the reason. Because as we all know China, Iran, and others are so much friendly to the US.
China killed less US citizen than both Israel and Russia in the last 10 years.
Their Fentanyl precursors have killed way more than Israel or Russia.
In that case, you should look at Purdue first, no?
The PRC penning stories directly into the Los Angeles Times seems like an even bigger story than this…
It's a letter to the editor from the Chinese consul in response to an editorial.
Does that justify publishing propaganda on your platform though? Editorial board should be media literate enough to know this. Of course, the LA times credibility has been tarnished since their billionaire owner bought it and started putting their thumb on things. Many journalists quit in protest due to this owner.
Here is the piece in question: https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2021-06-09/chinese-off...
It's very clearly labelled as an official response from the Chinese government. So it's what the people they're accusing have to say, and that's why they published it.
Whether or not to believe them is left to the reader.
It still breathes legitimacy into this propaganda by hosting it as such without any qualification. People might be inclined to believe the PRC, after all it is in the LA times, how untrue might it even be, they might think. Editors ought to be aware of the power of their platform. The chinese ultimately wanted to put this story in the LA times and they were allowed to do so.
The right of reply is widely considered part of journalistic ethics.
If you accuse someone of something in print, you should at least give them the opportunity to refute it.
Why not add "Pleads guilty" to the title. Or drop "Pleads" and just use the actual article title.
Character limits, but could have done better
Reminds me a bit of How I caught an Illegal Russian Spy but with slightly more accountability. That story was cracked by sloppy opsec of a reregistered cat chip in Italian and Russian databases.
Good job, and everything, but this ranks really, really low on my list of threats to the United States.
Do you think this is an isolated incident?
I'm sure it's extremely common.
Let me get thsi straight... it's OK for foreign countries to write our laws, but not this?
>the WeChat encrypted messaging application
That's certainly a way to describe WeChat.