Mayor of Southern California city to plead guilty acting as agent of China, feds say

U.S. newsMayor of Southern California city to plead guilty acting as agent of China, feds say“By her own admission, Eileen Wang secretly served the interests of the Chinese government,” official says. She was elected mayor of Arcadia in 2022 and has resigned. Listen to this article with a free account00:0000:00Eileen Wang attends the Asian Hall of Fame 2023 induction ceremony in Los Angeles.Frazer Harrison / Getty Images fileShareAdd NBC News to GoogleMay 11, 2026, 8:26 PM EDTBy Michael Kosnar, Andrew Blankstein and Phil HelselLOS ANGELES — The mayor of the Los Angeles-area city of Arcadia will plead guilty to illegally acting as an agent of China and has resigned from her municipal position, officials said Monday.Subscribe to read this story ad-free Get unlimited access to ad-free articles and exclusive content.Eileen Wang, who was elected mayor of the city of 56,000 in 2022, appeared in federal court Monday and was released on a $25,000 bond.She was charged Monday with one count of acting in the United States as an illegal agent of a foreign government and has agreed to plead guilty at a later date, the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Los Angeles said.“By her own admission, Eileen Wang secretly served the interests of the Chinese government,” Roman Rozhavsky, assistant director of the FBI’s counterintelligence and espionage division, said in a statement.Prosecutors said that Wang and Yaoning “Mike” Sun promoted “pro-PRC propaganda” in the U.S. through a website titled “U.S. News Center.” PRC refers to the People’s Republic of China.Sun pleaded guilty in October to one count of acting as a foreign agent and is serving a four-year prison sentence, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said.Her plea agreement says that Wang admits that she acted as an agent of China’s government and did not notify the U.S. attorney general as required.The agreement says that Wang and Sun “received and executed directives from PRC government officials to post pro-PRC content on the website,” and somet...