Arcadia Mayor Wang to Plead Guilty as China Agent

Arcadia Mayor Eileen Wang agreed to plead guilty on Monday to a federal charge of acting as an unregistered agent of the People's Republic of China, prompting her immediate resignation from office.

The plea agreement, unsealed in federal court in downtown Los Angeles, details how Wang, 58, worked from late 2020 through at least 2022 to promote Chinese government-directed content on a website called U.S. News Center, which presented itself as a news source for Chinese Americans. She collaborated with her then-fiance, Yaoning "Mike" Sun, executing directives from Chinese officials by posting articles, editing content at their request and sharing screenshots of viewership data, according to the court filing. Wang never disclosed the foreign government's involvement on the site.

One example cited in the agreement occurred on June 10, 2021, when Wang received a message from a Chinese official containing a link to an article titled "China's Stance on the Xinjiang Issue." The piece denied genocide or forced labor in Xinjiang, stating, "There is no genocide in Xinjiang there is no such thing as forced labor in any production activity, including cotton production. Spreading such rumor is...