A Southern California man has been sentenced for covertly operating as a Chinese agent while serving as campaign advisor for a local city council candidate and carrying out orders that included monitoring Taiwan's former president during her 2023 visit to the state.
Yaoning “Mike” Sun, 65, of Chino Hills, who pleaded guilty in October to a count of acting as an illegal agent of a foreign government, was sentenced earlier this week to four years in federal prison.
According to John Eisenberg, Assistant Attorney General for National Security, Sun carried out directives from Chinese government officials over a period of years, surveilling groups in the United States that Beijing viewed as threatening and disseminating Chinese propaganda to influence public discourse.
“His conduct represents a brazen violation of our national sovereignty,” Eisenberg said in a news release issued by the U.S. Department of Justice.
Court documents say Sun knowingly acted as an agent of the People’s Republic of China and its government officials without notifying the U.S. Attorney General as required by law. At the direction of Chinese officials, they say, Sun coordinated with other people in the U.S. to promote Chinese interests by, among other things, orchestrating a group to help elect a candidate he described to Beijing as a “new political star” and push pro-PRC propaganda.
