The mayor of Arcadia, California, a small town outside Los Angeles, has agreed with the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) to plead guilty to acting as an agent for the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).

Eileen Wang, who resigned on May 11 within hours of her case going public, is accused of secretly carrying out tasks for the CCP while in her capacity as mayor, and she’s not alone in these accusations—her former fiancé and campaign treasurer, Yaoning “Mike” Sun, has already been convicted on the same charge.

“All Americans should be alarmed to learn an elected official was brazenly spreading propaganda on behalf of the Chinese government,” Patrick Grandy, assistant director in charge of the FBI’s Los Angeles Office, said.

Wang made her first appearance on May 11 in a U.S. District Court in downtown Los Angeles, where the hearing was done through a Mandarin interpreter, and her bond was set at $25,000.

The DOJ said Wang will formally enter her guilty plea at a later date.

As for Sun, he was charged with acting as an illegal agent for a foreign government in December 2024 and pleaded guilty in October 2025. The 65-year-old man was sentenced in February to a four-year federal prison sentence.

How did two Chinese agents make their way into the top leadership of a California city? What are the pair accused of doing on behalf of the CCP? Here’s a breakdown of what we know so far.

Yaoning ‘Mike’ Sun

From at least 2022 to January 2024, Sun, who once served in the People’s Liberation Army, acted as a Chinese agent, according to the DOJ.

At the direction of the CCP, Sun promoted the regime’s interests and pro-China propaganda in the United States, while helping elect a politician who was identified in his court documents as “Individual 1.”

“Individual 1” is Wang, who was elected to the Arcadia city council in November 2022. The mayoral position rotates among the five-person governing body, and Wang’s term began in February.

Sun helped run a Chinese website from 2020 through 2023 purportedly for the local Chinese American community, but he was carrying out directives from the CCP to post pro-regime content, the release states.

In December 2022, the 65 year old attended a meeting with a “team dedicated” to the CCP’s interests, according to his plea agreement.

Sun drafted a report for the CCP in February 2023, asking for more money and tasks. The man also detailed his time living in the United States to “persist in resisting any hostile forces that undermine the friendship of U.S.-China relations, and Chinese secessionist forces.”

“Most of all, during the 2022 U.S. midterm elections, I orchestrated and organized my team to win the election for city council,” Sun said in this report, referring to Wang as a “new political star.”

The man continued, discussing “anti-China forces” causing issues. In the United States, he proposed “using part of our Los Angeles organization’s professional core team” to counteract those forces.

Sun’s report requested $80,000 from the CCP to fund a pro-China demonstration during a Fourth of July parade in Washington.

In April 2023, the convicted Chinese agent also spied on then-President of Taiwan, Tsai Ing-Wen, during her visit to Southern California, according to the release. He reported her movements directly to regime officials, including real-time updates to an official at the CCP’s consulate general in Los Angeles.

Sun worked covertly as a Chinese operative alongside another man, John Chen, who is a high-level member of the CCP intelligence sector.

Chen regularly attended elite regime functions and met personally with CCP leader Xi Jinping.

“[Sun] served as Chen’s right-hand man in the United States for decades,” prosecutors said.

Chen pleaded guilty to acting as an illegal agent for China and conspiracy to bribe an official. He was sentenced in November 2024 to 20 months in federal prison. A month later, Sun was charged.

More than a year later, the DOJ charged the mayor of Arcadia with acting as a Chinese agent.

Eileen Wang

Arcadia is located about 13 miles northeast of downtown Los Angeles. Even before being elected to the city council in 2022, with help from a now-convicted Chinese agent, Wang was allegedly taking directions from the CCP, beginning in 2020 through 2022 and promoted pro-regime propaganda alongside Sun.

“It is deeply concerning that someone who previously received and executed directives from [the People’s Republic of China] government officials is now in a position of public trust at all,” Assistant Attorney General for National Security John A. Eisenberg said.

Until now, Sun’s accomplice was unidentified and only referred to as “Individual 1.”

DOJ prosecutors said Wang helped Sun run their news site marketed for local Chinese Americans, called U.S. News Center, for disseminating CCP propaganda.

In June 2021, a regime official contacted Wang and others through Chinese encrypted messaging platform WeChat with pre-written news articles that painted the CCP in a positive light.

One message included an article published in the Los Angeles Times, reading: “China’s Stance on the Xinjiang Issue—There is no genocide in Xinjiang; there is no such thing as ‘forced labor’ in any production activity, including cotton production. Spreading such rumor to do defame China, destroy Xinjiang’s safety and stability, weaken local economy, suppress China’s development.”

Wang reposted the article on her own website then sent the link back to the CCP official, to which he responded, “So fast, thank you everyone.”

According to the DOJ, Wang was editing articles at the CCP official’s request and sending screenshots to show how many views the webpage was getting.

The former Arcadia mayor sent one screenshot showing 15,128 views for an article, and the regime official replied “Great!” accompanied by two thumbs-up emojis, according to the complaint.

“Thank you leader,” Wang wrote back with a smiley-face emoji with its tongue sticking out and two other emojis that simulate the hand position for bowing.

Wang also communicated with John Chen, the Chinese agent currently serving a 20 year sentence, in November 2021, the complaint adds, saying she had asked Chen to repost articles from her and Sun’s website, telling him “This is what the Ministry of Foreign Affairs wants to send.”

Wang has admitted in her plea agreement to acting as an agent for China and failing to notify the U.S. attorney general. She never gave notice on her website that her content was posted at the direction of the CCP, Wang acknowledged.

The former mayor’s attorneys said in an emailed statement to The Epoch Times that she is “sorry for the mistakes she has ​made in her personal life.”

“Her trust and love for apparently the wrong person who ultimately led her astray—require her to step away from public service,” the statement said.

“It is important to note, however, that the conduct underlying the information and the agreement with the government relates solely to Ms. Wang’s personal life—i.e., a media platform that she once operated with someone whom she believed to be her fiancé—and not to her conduct as an elected public official.”

Wang faces up to 10 years in prison, a three-year period of supervised release, and at least $250,000 in fines.

Arcadia City Manager Dominic Lazzaretto said no city finances or staff were involved and that Wang’s alleged conduct as a Chinese agent ceased after she was sworn onto the city council.

Reuters contributed to this report.