California Ex-Mayor Pleads Guilty To Being A Chinese Agent

The mayor of the California city of Arcadia, Eileen Wang, suddenly resigned from her position this week after the Department of Justice charged her with “one count of acting in the United States as an illegal agent” of China.

When reached for comment, the DoJ declined to explain what a ‘legal agent of China’ might be.

The former mayor has pleaded guilty to the felony charge and could face up to 10 years in prison. Now that might seem harsh, but ‘up to’ does mean that ‘zero years in prison’ is still on the cards. She could face ‘up to a billion years in prison’ and be fine. Hopefully, she’s a glass-half-full kind of person.

Before taking office, Wang ran a local Chinese American news website with her then-fiancé, Yaoning “Mike” Sun. According to the plea deal, her website regularly posted propaganda from the People’s Republic of China. Not a good look.

In one example, a PRC official sent Wang a pre-written news article in a WeChat chat.

The article read, “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.”

Persuasive stuff.

Within minutes, Wang had posted the article on her website, ‘US News Center’, and received a “So fast, thank you everyone,” from the PRC official.

So, all in all, it’s not really what you want from your local mayor.

This story comes in the wake of the breaking news that Donald Trump is planning a crucial diplomatic trip to China, hoping to secure a trillion-dollar investment in American manufacturing. Trump brings with him a long list of tech CEOs and investors, including Elon Musk, Larry Fink, Tim Cook, and executives from Boeing, Meta, and Visa.

Eileen Wang unfortunately did not make the guest list.