The mayor of a Los Angeles suburb has resigned and plans to plead guilty to charges that she was operating as an agent for the People's Republic of China.
Prosecutors say that Eileen Wang 58, of Arcadia, plans to plead guilty to one count of acting as an illegal agent of a foreign government. She faces a maximum sentence of 10 years in federal prison.
Wang was elected in November 2022 to the Arcadia City Council. The council is a five-person governing body from which the mayor is selected on a rotating basis. Arcadia, a community of 56,000 people, announced on its website that Wang had resigned from her position.
"Individuals in our country who covertly do the bidding of foreign governments undermine our democracy," said First Assistant United States Attorney Bill Essayli. "This plea agreement is the latest success in our determination to defend the homeland against China's efforts to corrupt our institutions."
According 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.
The pair operated the U.S. News Center website to spread Chinese propaganda and coordinated with U.S.-based individuals to promote the PRC's interests. The website purported to be a news source for the local Chinese American community.
Prosecutors said that 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[.]"
Wang posted the article within minutes on her website and sent the official a link to the article. The PRC official responded: "So fast, thank you everyone."
In another instance, Wang made edits to an article at the request of a PRC official and then sent the official a link to the article reflecting the requested changes. She also sent the official a screenshot showing the article had been viewed 15,128 time. The official messaged, "Great!," Wang replied, "Thank you leader."
"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."
Sun is already serving a four-year federal prison sentence after he pleaded guilty in October 2025 to acting as an illegal agent of a foreign government.
Another person Wang worked with was 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, prosecutors said.
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.
