The mayor of Arcadia, California, a predominantly Chinese-American suburb of Los Angeles, has agreed to plead guilty to a federal charge of acting as an agent for China by spreading propaganda on behalf of Beijing, U.S. officials said on Monday.
Within hours of the case being made public, Eileen Wang, 58, resigned from Arcadia’s city council, along with the position of mayor she assumed in February on a rotating basis, according to the city manager’s office.
She appeared briefly before a federal magistrate judge who instructed attorneys to agree to a date for a future hearing when Wang will formally enter her plea. Bond was set at $25,000. Monday’s proceeding was conducted through a Mandarin interpreter.
Alleged Pro-China Propaganda Role
In the 19-page plea deal filed April 1 and unsealed with the charging document on Monday, Wang agreed to plead guilty to a single felony count of acting as a foreign agent of the Chinese government without prior notification to the U.S. Justice Department.
The charge carries a sentence of up to 10 years in federal prison.
In the plea agreement, Wang admitted to promoting propaganda favorable to China “at the direction and control” of Chinese government officials from late 2020 through 2022, when she was elected to a four-year term on the Arcadia city council.
Specifically, she helped to run a website called the “U.S. News Center,” which purported to be a legitimate news source for the predominantly ethnic Chinese local community but was actually a mouthpiece for the Beijing government, the plea agreement said.
According to the filing, Wang received and carried out directives from Chinese government officials to post pro-China content on the website, including articles disputing reports of human rights abuses committed against ethnic Uyghurs in China’s Xinjiang region.
Responding to a complimentary text message from a Chinese government official acknowledging her work, Wang replied “Thank you leader,” her plea agreement said.
Links To Chinese Officials
Among Wang’s contacts with the Beijing government, prosecutors alleged, was a Chinese Communist Party figure named John Chen, who according to court documents was a high-level member of China’s intelligence apparatus who met personally with Chinese President Xi Jinping.
Chen was sentenced in November 2024 to 20 months in prison for a similar guilty plea.
A statement released by Wang’s attorneys said she “apologizes and is sorry for the mistakes she has made in her personal life.”
City Manager Dominic Lazzaretto said in a separate statement that the federal charge stems from “conduct that ceased after Ms. Wang was sworn into office in December 2022.” It said “no city finances, staff or decision-making processes were involved.”
(With inputs from Reuters)
