What we know about Eileen Wang, former Arcadia mayor accused of being Chinese foreign agent
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Eileen Wang emerged as an up-and-coming community leader in the San Gabriel Valley several years ago.She won the endorsement of prominent political figures and was elected to a seat on the Arcadia City Council.In a 2024 interview with The Times, Wang said she moved to Southern California from China 30 years ago.
Her mother was a Chinese medicine and acupuncture doctor, and her father was a physician in Sichuan province before working at USC, she said.She said she was drawn to Arcadia by the good schools for her sons and her desire to make a difference in the community.This week, unsealed documents show she’s been charged with acting as an illegal foreign agent of China.Wang resigned from the City Council on Monday after reaching an agreement to resolve the federal case.Here is a rundown of what we know:From late 2020 through at least 2022, Wang worked with Yaoning “Mike” Sun, her former fiance, running a website called U.S.
News Center that branded itself as a news source for Chinese Americans, according to the plea agreement unsealed Monday.Wang and Sun “executed directives” from Chinese government officials, posting requested articles and reporting back with screenshots showing how many people viewed the stories, the agreement says.
California Federal authorities alleged that Eileen Wang, the mayor of Arcadia, was cultivated to help promote pro-China policies, according to a plea agreement unsealed Monday.On June 10, 2021, the agreement says, Wang received a message from a government official about “China’s Stance on the Xinjiang Issue,” which included a link to a letter to the editor in the Los Angeles Times from the consul general of the People’s Republic of China in Los Angeles.The consul general had been responding to a Times editorial supporting a boycott of products made with cotton produced in the Xinjiang region of China.At the time, news reports w...