After being sworn in as second-in-command of the Arcadia City Council, Eileen Wang addressed a controversy that has taken a back seat in the months since the Eaton fire devastated nearby Altadena.
“We broke up the fiance relationship,” Wang said of her former campaign manager, Yaoning “Mike” Sun. “We keep the friendship.”
Wang said their romantic relationship ended last spring, eight months before federal prosecutors charged Sun with conspiracy and acting as an illegal agent of a foreign government.
The April 15 statement from Wang, now mayor pro tem of the San Gabriel Valley city, was one of the few times she has publicly addressed the charges against Sun, who allegedly worked with China to cultivate Wang, in hopes that she would rise in politics and help promote pro-China policies, including opposition to Taiwan.
Facing calls for her resignation, Wang had vowed in January not to step away from the council, emphasizing that she was “not responsible for the action of others.”
Wang did not respond to several calls and emails from The Times. The other four council members also did not respond to emails.
“I have a lot of questions,” said former Councilmember Sheng Chang, who ran against Wang in 2022 and recalled being stunned by the fundraising prowess and plum endorsements of “the new kid on the block.”
Arcadia City Manager Dominic Lazzaretto released a short statement soon after Sun was charged in December, saying Wang was cooperating with the FBI and that Sun “had no involvement whatsoever with City of Arcadia business or decision-making.”
Wang, who immigrated to the U.S. from China three decades ago, was never charged, and it’s unclear whether she was aware of the alleged scheme. In a criminal complaint against Sun, prosecutors identified her only as “Individual 1.”
The complaint provides a rare glimpse into the covert influence the Chinese government allegedly seeks to have on politicians and organizations in the San Gabriel Valley, a landing spot for many Chinese and Taiwanese immigrants.
Campaign records examined by The Times indicate that Sun served as Wang’s campaign manager, lending money and helping bring in donations — some of which came from sources with ties to the Chinese government.
James Su, president of EDI Media in West Covina, donated $500 to Wang’s campaign on Oct. 10, 2022. Su’s media company, which includes several L.A.-based media groups, including the Chinese-language website iCity News, had to register as a foreign agent in May 2022 because it formerly printed the U.S. version of a newspaper considered a “foreign mission” of the Chinese government.
As the November 2022 election neared, iCity News published a slew of glowing articles on Wang, a political novice and owner of an after-school tutoring company.
“Remember! You must vote for Eileen!” concluded an article, one of roughly half a dozen the outlet published that year on Wang, who would receive an endorsement from Su as well as the $500 donation.
There were no stories on Chang, Wang’s opponent, a Taiwanese immigrant who ran a bare-bones campaign with $34,000 he lent himself.
Lina Li, an office manager for EDI who said she was responding on Su’s behalf, wrote in an email that the $500 donation was made from Su’s personal funds because he believed Wang was a “good candidate.” The company has not had to register as a foreign agent since 2022, she said.
The L.A. arm of Sing Tao US, a subsidiary of a Chinese-owned newspaper that is registered as a foreign agent, also donated to Wang’s campaign, giving $3,300 on Aug. 9, 2022, according to campaign finance records.
Wang paid the company the same amount for print ads, according to the records.
The Sing Tao Daily is one of the oldest newspapers in Hong Kong and has long been featured on newsstands in Chinatown and the San Gabriel Valley. Sing Tao US wrote in a government filing it is “editorially independent” from its Chinese parent company.
Robin Mui, chief executive of Sing Tao US, said Wang’s campaign made an error on its campaign finance forms. Sing Tao never contributed to Wang’s campaign and only received payment from it for ads, Mui said.
The “L.A. [branch] never made any political contribution — unless you prove to me otherwise,” Mui said.
The criminal complaint against Sun described extensive interactions between Sun and John Chen, who was sentenced to federal prison last year for acting as an illegal Chinese agent and plotting against Falun Gong, a spiritual practice banned in China.
Chen reportedly described a former L.A. County supervisor, identified only as M.A., as “friendly to China.” Chen’s Chinese handler told him that he would be given funds to “socialize with” the former supervisor in the hopes of getting an introduction to M.A.’s successor, identified as C.B.
Former Supervisor Mike Antonovich, who oversaw a district including parts of the San Gabriel Valley from 1980 to 2016, said he first met Chen at a dinner for a Chinese association and would occasionally run into him at community events. He never felt Chen was pushing a political agenda, he said.
Antonovich said the only time he felt pressure from the Chinese government was before Double Ten Day, a national holiday in Taiwan on Oct. 10. Every year, the Chinese consulate would reach out to each supervisor and ask them not to attend local celebrations, Antonovich said.
Antonovich said he didn’t heed the guidance and spoke at Double Ten celebrations twice.
Supervisor Kathryn Barger, who succeeded Antonovich, said she has never met with Chen or Sun and has no records of either man reaching out to her office, according to her spokesperson.
Much of the campaign Sun orchestrated for Wang would be considered standard fare for an up-and-coming San Gabriel Valley politician.
Wang, a longtime resident of Arcadia, hired Santa Maria Group, a prominent lobbying firm. She nabbed plum endorsements from big-name politicians: L.A. County Supervisor Hilda Solis, U.S. Rep. Judy Chu (D-Monterey Park) and Chu’s husband, former state Assemblymember Michael Eng.
In total, Wang raised $119,000, mostly from donors with addresses in the San Gabriel Valley. Another top fundraiser, Councilmember Michael Cao, brought roughly $125,000 into his campaign that year.
Chang, who was seeking a third term on the City Council after winning a seat in 1994 and 2000, said that for the first time, his heritage became a talking point during an election, when a supporter asked him to remove her name from his list of endorsements because she had heard that he supported Taiwan independence.
Wang’s Instagram account from that time is full of videos of her on the campaign trail, set to zippy pop songs. She previously told The Times that she knocked on every door in her district multiple times to make sure she reached every resident.
“I walked about 140 days … I never stopped,” she said over a dim sum lunch last November, before the criminal charges against Sun. “I walked my district five times.”
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