California Mayor’s Guilty Plea Reveals China’s Infiltration of US, Analysts Says ‘𝘞𝘢𝘯𝘨 𝘪𝘴 𝘧𝘢𝘳 𝘧𝘳𝘰𝘮 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘰𝘯𝘭𝘺 𝘢𝘴𝘴𝘦𝘵 𝘵𝘰 𝘩𝘢𝘷𝘦 𝘦𝘮𝘣𝘦𝘥𝘥𝘦𝘥 𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘴𝘦𝘭𝘧 𝘪𝘯 𝘜.𝘚. 𝘪𝘯𝘴𝘵𝘪𝘵𝘶𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯𝘴,’ 𝘰𝘯𝘦 𝘢𝘯𝘢𝘭𝘺𝘴𝘵 𝘴𝘢𝘪𝘥. A guilty plea by a California mayor has exposed Beijing’s campaign to use domestic elections as a way to shape political outcomes in the United States, and experts warn the threat will only deepen. Eileen Wang, the mayor of Arcadia, California, was charged with acting as an illegal agent of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), the Department of Justice said on May 11. She agreed to plead guilty to the felony count and faces a maximum sentence of 10 years in federal prison, according to the Justice Department. Wang resigned from office the same day. Ken Wu, vice president of the Los Angeles chapter of the Formosan Association for Public Affairs, said China will continue targeting U.S. city and county leaders as primary infiltration objectives, operating with enough caution to avoid detection in many cases. “The U.S. political system grants immense leeway to local governments, and city council members wield considerably more authority than outsiders might expect,” Wu said. “Beijing zeros in on this freedom, drawing local officials into its orbit to establish a political foothold and influence domestic policy from the grassroots level.” Wang and a partner, Sun Yaoning, ran a website called U.S. News Center, posing as a local news outlet for the Chinese-American community while publishing pro-Beijing content at the direction of Chinese regime officials, the department said. Sun pleaded guilty in October 2025 and is serving a four-year federal prison sentence. Wang was elected to the Arcadia City Council in November 2022 and was mayor when federal charges were filed. The mayoralty rotates among the council’s five members. Wang’s attorneys said in an earlier 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. Wang faces up to 10 years in prison, a three-year period of supervised release, and at least $250,000 in fines. “The FBI is dedicated to rooting out those illegally acting as agents of a foreign government as they do the bidding of America’s adversaries,” said Patrick Grandy, the assistant director in Charge of the FBI’s Los Angeles Field Office. Finish reading: