Arcadia Mayor Eileen Wang admits acting as illegal Chinese agent, steps down after pleading guilty in US court case. Photo: AFP.
Eileen Wang, the mayor of Arcadia, has admitted to acting as an illegal foreign agent of China, stepping down from office after a federal plea agreement was unsealed on Monday. Wang has agreed with prosecutors that she worked on behalf of the People’s Republic of China to amplify propaganda in the US through a fake news platform between 2020 and 2022. Wang, 58, was elected to the Arcadia City Council in November 2022. Arcadia is located in the San Gabriel Valley in Los Angeles County, and the mayoral position is rotated among council members.
According to court documents cited by NY Post, Wang worked alongside her then-fiancé Yaoning ‘Mike’ Sun to operate a website called US News Center. The platform was presented as a news source aimed at Chinese Americans.
Prosecutors said the site was, in reality, used to execute directives from Chinese government officials.
Between 2020 and 2022, Wang and Sun allegedly “executed directives” from their handlers, publishing pro-China propaganda and regularly reporting back with screenshots showing engagement metrics such as page views.
One of the messages cited in the plea agreement shows a handler instructing Wang to publish pre-written content, including a Chinese government-written essay that had appeared in the Los Angeles Times.
The message included a denial of widely reported allegations about China, “There is no genocide in Xinjiang; there is no such thing as ‘forced labor’ in any production activity, including cotton production. Spreading such rumor is to defame China, destroy Xinjiang’s safety and stability,” the handler wrote.
Wang complied with the directive, and the handler later responded: “So fast, thank you everyone.”
In another instance, Wang’s handler praised her for audience engagement on propaganda content. Wang replied: “Thank you leader.”
Wang pleaded guilty during her arraignment in downtown Los Angeles on Monday afternoon. She now faces a maximum sentence of 10 years in federal prison.
Under the plea agreement, she admitted acting under the control of Chinese officials to distribute propaganda within the United States.
Prosecutors had already charged Sun in 2024 with conspiracy and acting as an illegal agent of a foreign government.
Wang said her relationship with Sun ended that year. Sun had also served as her campaign manager during her City Council run in 2022. The Arcadia mayoral position is selected on a rotating basis from council members.
In 2025, Wang attempted to distance herself from Sun, stating she was “not responsible for the action of others” and refused to resign from her council position at the time.
Sun was later sentenced in February to four years in federal prison.
In a 2024 interview with the Los Angeles Times, Wang said she had moved to Southern California from China three decades earlier.
She stated that her mother was a practitioner of Chinese medicine and acupuncture, while her father was a physician in Sichuan province who later worked at the University of Southern California.
Wang was elected to the Arcadia City Council on a Democratic Party ticket in November 2022.
The New York Post, citing the US Department of Justice, reported that Sun also allegedly conducted espionage activities related to Taiwan while operating from the US.
Federal authorities in US continue to pursue other alleged Chinese intelligence operations in the country. Last year, two Chinese nationals were arrested for espionage and for allegedly attempting to recruit members of the US Navy as intelligence assets for China. The suspects were identified as Yuanchen Chen (38), a resident of Happy Valley, and Liren “Ryan” Lai (39), who arrived in Houston, Texas, in April on a tourist visa. They were arrested by the FBI in 2025.
According to the latest assessment from US intelligence agencies, China “remains the most active and persistent cyber threat to [the] US.”
Also Read: Why Donald Trump Is Taking Elon Musk and Tim Cook To China Amid Rising US-China Tensions
Zubair Amin is a Senior Journalist at NewsX with over seven years of experience in reporting and editorial work. He has written for leading national and international publications, including Foreign Policy Magazine, Al Jazeera, The Economic Times, The Indian Express, The Wire, Article 14, Mongabay, News9, among others. His primary focus is on international affairs, with a strong interest in US politics and policy. He also writes on West Asia, Indian polity, and constitutional issues. Zubair tweets at zubaiyr.amin
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