Arcadia Mayor Resigns After Pleading Guilty to Acting as Chinese Foreign Agent
Eileen Wang, mayor of Arcadia, California, agreed to plead guilty to acting as an illegal agent for the Chinese government, promoting pro-Beijing propaganda through a fake news site.
The mayor of Arcadia, a small city in Los Angeles County, has agreed to plead guilty to acting as an illegal foreign agent for the Chinese government — and the details read like a spy thriller set in suburban America.
Eileen Wang, 58, was charged in April with one count of acting in the United States as an illegal agent of a foreign government. On Monday, she struck a plea deal with federal prosecutors and resigned from her position as mayor.
How It Worked
According to the plea agreement, Wang and a colleague, Yaoning “Mike” Sun, operated a website called U.S. News Center, targeting the Chinese American community. The site appeared to be a legitimate news outlet, but under direction from officials at the People’s Republic of China, the pair posted pro-Beijing propaganda from late 2020 through 2022.
The scheme was direct and brazen. In one instance in June 2021, a Chinese government official sent Wang a link to a letter published in the Los Angeles Times by China’s consul general in Los Angeles. The letter denied reports of persecution, forced labor, and abuse of Uyghurs in Xinjiang — claims that the U.S. and several other nations have classified as genocide and crimes against humanity.
Within minutes of receiving the message, Wang shared the link on U.S. News Center.
The Political Connection
What makes the case particularly alarming is that Wang wasn’t just a private citizen running a propaganda site. She was elected to Arcadia’s five-person city council in November 2022, after which she was selected as mayor on a rotating basis. Sun, her co-conspirator, was listed as the treasurer of her election campaign. He is already serving a four-year sentence after pleading guilty to the same charge in October 2025.
City manager Dominic Lazzaretto was quick to emphasize that no city finances or staff were involved, and that the charged conduct ceased after Wang took office in December 2022. But the proximity of foreign influence to elected office is what makes this case resonate far beyond Arcadia’s city limits.
What Happens Next
Wang faces a maximum sentence of 10 years in federal prison. Her attorneys, Jason Liang and Brian Sun, issued a statement saying she “recognizes the seriousness of the charge and accepts responsibility for past personal mistakes” and that her “love and devotion for the Arcadia community have not changed.”
Why It Matters
This case is the latest in a string of prosecutions by the U.S. Justice Department targeting Chinese influence operations on American soil. From so-called “police stations” in New York to operatives targeting dissidents and manipulating local media, the pattern is clear: foreign governments see value in shaping narrative at the community level, not just through high-level diplomacy.
Arcadia, with its large Chinese American population, was an ideal target — a community where Chinese-language media carries real influence and where a sympathetic local official could serve as a foothold.
The question that lingers is how many similar operations remain undetected. Wang and Sun were caught, but the infrastructure they used — a fake news site, community trust, political ambition — is replicable anywhere.