A federal judge sentenced a Southern California man to four years in prison on Monday after he pleaded guilty to working as an illegal agent of the Chinese government, including by supporting the successful election campaign of a Chinese American candidate.
At the direction of Chinese government officials, the man, a 65-year-old Chinese national named Mike Sun, covertly worked to promote Chinese interests in the Los Angeles area, according to his October plea deal with federal prosecutors. His work included running a news site disseminating Chinese government messaging to the local Chinese community, monitoring the movements of Taiwan’s president during her visit to the region and helping a politician he considered friendly to Chinese interests win a seat on a city council, prosecutors said.
The sentencing of Mr. Sun, who is also known as Yaoning Sun, comes after other revelations of the Chinese government enlisting agents in major American cities to advance its interests in state and local politics, such as countering the Taiwanese independence movement. Those efforts have focused heavily on areas with a sizable Chinese diaspora population, including the San Gabriel Valley in California, where Mr. Sun was based.
“For years, Sun received and executed taskings from Chinese government officials, distorted our public discourse by disseminating Chinese propaganda and surveilled groups in the United States that China viewed as threatening its interests,” John A. Eisenberg, assistant U.S. attorney general for national security, said in a statement on Tuesday. “His conduct represents a brazen violation of our national sovereignty.”
Lawyers for Mr. Sun did not respond to a request for comment on Tuesday.
Prosecutors said that Mr. Sun helped a candidate who aligned with interests of the Chinese government win local office, serving as a campaign adviser.
They did not name the politician, but during the years the prosecutors cited, Mr. Sun was the campaign treasurer for Eileen Wang, according to public records. In 2022, she won a City Council seat in Arcadia, a city in Los Angeles County, and now serves as the city’s mayor.
Mr. Sun was also engaged to Ms. Wang at one point. Last year, Ms. Wang issued a statement saying that she had ended her romantic relationship with him before he was arrested and charged by federal authorities, The Los Angeles Times reported.
Ms. Wang has not been charged with any wrongdoing, and she has resisted calls for her resignation over her connections to Mr. Sun, according to local media reports. Ms. Wang did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Tuesday.
Another man, John Chen, who prosecutors said served as a go-between for Mr. Sun and the Chinese government, was sentenced in 2024 to 20 months in prison for acting as an illegal foreign agent. He had pleaded guilty to what prosecutors described as a plot to repress U.S.-based members of the religious group Falun Gong, which was formed in China and has fiercely opposed the Chinese Communist Party, and to bribe a tax official to help revoke the group’s tax-exempt status.
At Mr. Chen’s behest, Mr. Sun penned a report in February 2023 detailing his efforts on behalf of the Chinese government, prosecutors said, including his work to get a “new political star” allied to its cause elected to a city council in 2022. The report also requested $80,000 from the Chinese government to support pro-China work, including organizing a demonstration at a Fourth of July parade in Washington, according to Mr. Sun’s plea agreement.
The plea agreement also outlined how in 2023 Mr. Sun provided an official at the Chinese consulate in Los Angeles with real-time updates on the location of Tsai Ing-Wen, who was then the president of Taiwan, during her visit to the area. He also took photographs of people demonstrating in support of and against Ms. Tsai and sent them to the consular official, the plea agreement states.
Chris Hippensteel is a reporter covering breaking news and a member of the 2025-26 Times Fellowship class, a program for journalists early in their careers.
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