{"id":5106,"date":"2026-05-12T02:26:52","date_gmt":"2026-05-12T02:26:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadafirst.nfshost.com\/?p=5106"},"modified":"2026-05-12T02:28:09","modified_gmt":"2026-05-12T02:28:09","slug":"immigration-alert-the-red-chinese-fifth-column-within-u-s-mayor-resigns-to-plead-guilty-to-acting-as-agent-for-chinese-government","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadafirst.nfshost.com\/?p=5106","title":{"rendered":"Immigration Alert: The Red Chinese Fifth Column Within: U.S. mayor resigns, to plead guilty to acting as agent for Chinese government"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

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U.S. mayor resigns, to plead guilty to acting as agent for Chinese government<\/h1>\n\n\n\n

By <\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Associated Press<\/a>Opens in new window<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Updated: May 11, 2026 at 9:19PM EDT<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"\/
Eileen Wang was charged in April with one count of acting in the United States as an illegal agent of a foreign government. (Photo courtesy of Arcadia, Calif. City Council)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

LOS ANGELES \u2014 A Southern California mayor has agreed to plead guilty to acting as an illegal agent for the Chinese government, and has resigned from her city position, officials said Monday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Eileen Wang, the mayor of Arcadia, was charged in April with one count of acting in the United States as an illegal agent of a foreign government. She was accused of doing the bidding of Chinese officials, such as sharing articles favourable to Beijing, without prior notification to the U.S. government as required by law.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The 58-year-old was elected in November 2022 to a five-person city council, from which the mayor is selected on a rotating basis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

City manager Dominic Lazzaretto said in a news release that no city finances or staff were involved.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe 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,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Federal officials said she has agreed to plead guilty to the felony, which comes with a maximum sentence of 10 years in federal prison.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to her plea agreement, Wang and a colleague, Yaoning \u201cMike\u201d Sun, worked on behalf of government officials for the People\u2019s Republic of China from the end of 2020 to 2022 to promote their interests by promoting pro-PRC propaganda in the U.S. Sun is serving a four-year sentence after he pleaded guilty to the same charge last October. He was also listed in campaign filings as the treasurer for Wang\u2019s 2022 election campaign.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Wang and Sun operated the news website U.S. News Center, aimed at the Chinese American community, and were instructed by Chinese government officials to post pro-PRC content on it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Wang has also communicated with John Chen, who also pleaded guilty to being an agent for the Chinese government and was sentenced to 20 months in prison.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Wang is expected to appear in federal court Monday afternoon in downtown Los Angeles and plead guilty in the coming weeks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Arcadia is located about 13 miles (21 kilometres) northeast of Los Angeles. The city of about 53,000 is majority Asian and has a high concentration of Chinese residents.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

U.S. mayor resigns, to plead guilty to acting as agent for Chinese government By The Associated PressOpens in new window Updated: May 11, 2026 at 9:19PM EDT LOS ANGELES \u2014 A Southern California mayor has agreed to plead guilty to acting as an illegal agent for the Chinese government, and has resigned from her city position, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[3572,961,3573],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadafirst.nfshost.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5106"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadafirst.nfshost.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadafirst.nfshost.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadafirst.nfshost.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadafirst.nfshost.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5106"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/canadafirst.nfshost.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5106\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5108,"href":"https:\/\/canadafirst.nfshost.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5106\/revisions\/5108"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadafirst.nfshost.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5106"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadafirst.nfshost.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5106"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadafirst.nfshost.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5106"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}