The former campaign adviser of a Southern California city council member pleaded guilty on Oct. 27 to acting as an illegal Chinese agent.
Sun Yaoning, also known as Mike Sun, worked as a campaign adviser in the 2022 city council race in Arcadia, a Los Angeles suburb.
He also operated a news website targeting the local Chinese American community, posting content supporting the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).
If the judge accepts the sentencing recommendation, Sun, 64, could face up to 10 years in prison.
In the plea agreement, Sun agreed that he was a foreign agent for China from 2022 to 2024, promoting pro-CCP propaganda in the United States without alerting the U.S. Attorney General.
Campaign filings from the November 2022 election show that Sun worked as treasurer for the campaign of Eileen Wang, an Arcadia city council member.
At the time of the arrest in December 2024, Arcadia City Manager Dominic Lazzaretto said in a letter to the community that Sun had no affiliation with the City of Arcadia and that Wang had spoken with the FBI and was cooperating with investigators.
According to the plea agreement, Sun admitted to writing a report about his activities in support of the CCP.
“Overseas anti-China forces have been ceaseless, Taiwan independence, Tibet independence, Xinjiang independence, and Falungong have been active for a long time,” he wrote.
Falun Gong, also known as Falun Dafa, is a spiritual discipline based on the principles of truthfulness, compassion, and forbearance. As with the other areas mentioned above, the faith group has been a major target of the Chinese regime.
Sun proposed organizing counteractivities and requested $80,000 to fund a demonstration at a Fourth of July parade in Washington, according to the criminal complaint filed on Dec. 17, 2024, by the Justice Department in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California.
Sun also admitted to providing information to a Chinese official at the Chinese Consulate in Los Angeles about activities in the area related to Taiwan. In April 2023, during a visit by then-Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen, Sun took photos of protesters and sent them to the Chinese official.
The case is one of several local political influence cases brought by the Justice Department in the past few years, including one involving Linda Sun, a former aide to New York Gov. Kathy Hochul.
Prosecutors said Sun conspired with a California man, Chen Jun, who was sentenced in 2024 for acting as a Chinese agent operating against a nonprofit group founded by Falun Gong practitioners.
From 2022 to 2024, Sun received instructions from Chinese officials to publish pro-Beijing content on a website that he was running.
“Defendant [Mike Sun] and Individual 1 received and executed directives from PRC government officials to post pro-PRC content on the website, and sometimes sought approval from PRC government officials to post other pro-PRC content on the website,” the plea agreement reads.
Individual 1 refers to the city council member, but she is not named in the plea agreement.
Eva Fu contributed to this report.
