The mayor of Arcadia, California, has been charged in federal court with acting as an illegal agent of the People’s Republic of China (PRC), the Justice Department announced today.
Eileen Wang, 58, of Arcadia, is charged via information with one count of acting in the United States as an illegal agent of a foreign government.
In a related filing, Wang has agreed to plead guilty to the felony count, which comes with a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison.
She is expected to make her initial appearance this afternoon in U.S. District Court in downtown Los Angeles. Wang is expected to plead guilty in the coming weeks.
Wang was elected in November 2022 to the Arcadia City Council, a five-person governing body from which the mayor is selected on a rotating basis.
“Individuals elected to public office in the United States should act only for the people of the United States that they represent,” said Assistant Attorney General for National Security John A. Eisenberg. “It is deeply concerning that someone who previously received and executed directives from PRC government officials is now in a position of public trust at all, but particularly so because that relationship with that foreign government had never been disclosed.”
“Individuals in our country who covertly do the bidding of foreign governments undermine our democracy,” said First Assistant U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli for the Central District of California. “This plea agreement is the latest success in our determination to defend the homeland against China’s efforts to corrupt our institutions.”
“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. “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.”
According to her plea agreement, from late 2020 through 2022, Wang and Yaoning “Mike” Sun, 65, of Chino Hills, California, 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.”
In August 2021, Wang and three other members of the same group chat shared links to the same article on their respective “news” websites, after which the PRC official thanked them for their “reporting.” At the PRC official’s request, Wang made edits to the article, sent the official a link to the article reflecting the requested change, then sent the official a screenshot showing the article had been viewed 15,128 times. In response, the official messaged, “Great!,” Wang replied, “Thank you leader.”
In November 2021, Wang communicated with John Chen, a high-level member of the PRC intelligence apparatus, who regularly attended elite Chinese Communist Party functions, including military parades, and met personally with PRC President Xi Jinping, according to court documents. Wang asked Chen to post a “news” article from her website, and wrote, “This is what the Ministry of Foreign Affairs wants to send.”
Chen was sentenced in November 2024 to 20 months in federal prison after pleading guilty in the Southern District of New York to acting as an illegal agent of the PRC and conspiracy to bribe a public official.
Wang admitted in her plea agreement that she did not notify the Attorney General that she was acting in the United States as an agent of the PRC, that she was located in the United States when she engaged in these acts, and that did she not disclose on her website that some of its content had been posted at the direction of members of the PRC government.
The FBI is investigating this matter.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Amanda B. Elbogen for the Central District of California is prosecuting this case, with assistance from Trial Attorney Garrett Coyle of the Counterintelligence and Export Control Section in the Department of Justice’s National Security Division.
