Arcadia Mayor To Plead Guilty To Acting As Chinese Foreign Agent

The mayor of Arcadia, California, Eileen Wang, has been charged by the Department of Justice (DOJ) with acting as an illegal agent of the People’s Republic of China (PRC). Wang was charged under 18 U.S.C. § 951 with knowingly acting in the United States as an illegal agent of a foreign government, without prior notification to the Attorney General, as required by law. According to court filings, Wang entered a plea agreement in which she agreed to plead guilty to this single felony count. The statutory maximum sentence for this charge is ten years in federal prison.

In November 2022, Wang was elected to the Arcadia City Council, a five-member governing body from which the mayor is selected on a rotating basis. According to public reports, Wang resigned from her position as mayor and from the city council after the DOJ’s case against her was made public.

According to the plea agreement, beginning in late 2020 through 2022, Wang knowingly acted as an agent of a foreign government, which involved coordinating with “U.S.-based individuals to promote the interests of the PRC by, among other things, promoting pro-PRC propaganda in the United States.” Specifically, Wang ran a website called U.S. News Center, which purported to be a legitimate news source for the local Chinese-American community. Instead, it is alleged that Wang, working with Yaoning “Mike” Sun, received instructions from Chinese government officials to post articles favorable to China. Sun is currently serving a four-year federal prison sentence after pleading guilty to acting as an illegal agent of a foreign government in October 2025.

To operate U.S. News Center, Wang was contacted through an encrypted messaging application to publish pre-written news articles regarding topics such as disputing forced labor claims in the Xinjiang region of China. For example, and according to the plea agreement, Wang posted an article in 2021 regarding “China’s Stance on the Xinjiang Issue” after receiving messages from a Chinese government official stating that there is “no genocide in Xinjiang . . . no such thing as ‘forced labor’ in any production activity,” and “[s]preading such rumor is to defame China.” The Chinese government official instructed Wang and others in a group chat to post the article on their individual “news” websites and subsequently thanked them for their “reporting.”

In her plea agreement, Wang admitted she was physically present in the United States each time she engaged in these activities, and that she never disclosed that certain content on her website was posted at the direction of PRC government officials. Nor did she notify the Attorney General that she was acting as an agent of the PRC while in the United States.

Wang appeared in federal court on May 11, 2026, where the judge instructed her attorneys to set a date for a future hearing to formally enter her plea. Bond was set at $25,000.

18 U.S.C. § 951 requires agents operating under the control of foreign governments or foreign officials to notify the Attorney General before acting. Registration under the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) serves as the required notification under § 951. Separate from § 951, FARA requires registration of U.S. persons who act as agents of a foreign principal and engage in certain specified activities within the United States. Wang’s charges underscore the DOJ’s commitment to pursuing criminal violations related to combatting covert foreign influence.

The legal landscape of FARA and related statutes is evolving. Buchanan’s team of National Security attorneys has extensive experience advising on FARA and is well-prepared to provide counsel on the complex and changing issues surrounding its enforcement. Our eBook, Navigating the Law: Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) Handbook, provides further guidance on FARA, including details on the reporting and registration processes, potential non-compliance penalties associated with FARA violations, DOJ public advisory opinions, and recent enforcement developments.