IMAGE ‘DAMAGED’?
Ted Tseng, who emigrated to the US from Taiwan, was concerned the espionage case would deepen animosity against Asian Americans
In 2024, voters in the Southern California city of Arcadia elected the first all-Asian city council in the city’s history.
Now, one of those politicians has pleaded guilty to being an illegal agent of the Chinese government. Former Arcadia mayor Eileen Wang’s (王愛琳) plea, entered in federal court on Friday last year, continues a saga that some residents of the area worry could bring unfair scrutiny on the broader Chinese and Asian American community.
Arcadia has gone under rapid demographic change in the past two decades as immigrants from Taiwan, China and Hong Kong flocked to the San Gabriel Valley east of Los Angeles. After Wang’s case was made public on May 11, the news made national headlines and filled the unassuming suburban city with anger, disappointment and murmurs of quiet concern. On social media, fears about spies and Chinese Communist Party influence abounded.
Photo: Arcadia City Hall via Facebook
“We cannot allow this moment to become an excuse for people to paint entire communities with one brush or weaponize ethnicity for political gain,” acting Mayor Paul Cheng (鄭博仁) said in a statement.
Wang agreed in April to plead guilty to doing the bidding of Chinese officials by sharing articles favorable of Beijing on a news Web site she ran, without notifying the US government as required by law.
The 56-year-old was elected in November 2022 to a five-person city council, from which the mayor is selected on a rotating basis. She was born in Chengdu, China, and immigrated to the US in 1995.
The San Gabriel Valley is home to the largest concentration of residents of Chinese and Taiwanese descent in the US. Beginning in the 1970s, real-estate developers marketed the region as “Chinese Beverly Hills” to woo affluent immigrants. As the population grew, it became a haven for newer immigrants who could go about life without needing English, access business opportunities and avoid putting their children through China’s intensely competitive education system. Arcadia’s population of about 53,000 is majority Asian, like many other cities in the region.
Ted Tseng, 52, arrived in Arcadia from Taiwan about 40 years ago with his parents, who emigrated because they feared potential conflict between Taiwan and China.
Tseng was concerned Wang’s indictment would deepen animosity against Asian Americans and discredit their contributions to the region. Fears of anti-Asian racism, although hate crimes are down since the COVID-19 pandemic, still linger.
“I’m just worried our image has been damaged,” Tseng said.
The US Department of Justice has escalated efforts in the past few years to combat Chinese espionage. In April, a man accused of running a secret Chinese spy outpost in Manhattan’s Chinatown neighborhood was convicted of acting as an illegal foreign agent.
Wang has suggested that she was misled by her former fiance, Yaoning “Mike” Sun (孫耀寧), who pleaded guilty to the same charge last year and is now serving a four-year prison sentence. Sun was the treasurer for Wang’s 2022 election campaign.
A statement shared by Wang’s lawyers references her “trust and love for apparently the wrong person who ultimately led her astray.”
April Verlato, a former Arcadia City Council member who served with Wang, said Wang and Sun lived together, and Sun accompanied Wang wherever she went.
Wang should have stepped down as soon as she came under investigation, Verlato said.
“She was being selfish, getting sworn in as mayor and not resigning when she knew she was going to be pleading guilty to something,” Verlato said.
Gene Sun (孫國第), a long-time lawyer in Arcadia, agreed.
“I don’t understand how she could have continued being a City Council member,” he said.
It is not surprising that the Chinese government would attempt to exert political influence in the region, especially given the increased political tension and economic rivalry between China and the US over the past few years, said Wei Li (李唯), a professor of Asian Pacific American Studies at Arizona State University.
“A lot of countries, if they have the will and if they have the means, will try to influence their diaspora,” Li said.
According to his federal criminal complaint, Yaoning Sun was in contact with John Chen (陳軍), who also pleaded guilty to being an illegal agent of the Chinese government assisting them in searching for local politicians who Beijing could influence. In reports to Chinese officials, Sun and Chen called Wang a “new political star” and bragged about her contacts with mainstream US politicians.
They also wrote of combatting “anti-China forces” such as Taiwanese independence and the Falun Gong, an exiled anti-communist spiritual movement.
In a January 2023 message from Chen to Wang referenced in Yaoning Sun’s criminal complaint, Chen said: “You are doing a good job, I hope you can continue the good work, make Chinese people proud.”
Not only was the news of her guilty plea like a “slap in the face,” the reaction from some community members has also been painful, said Cheng, the acting mayor.
Some residents at a May 19 Arcadia City Council meeting blamed remaining council members for enabling Wang and called for their resignations.
“I’ve been called more names, been told to go back to China although that’s not where I’m from,” said Cheng, who went to the US from Taiwan when he was 2.
For many Arcadia residents and workers, life was as usual the day after the news broke. Many smiled apologetically when asked about the issue, saying they do not pay attention to politics.
Aliza Mo, who emigrated from China six years ago for her children’s education, said she first thought the headlines must be exaggerated.
“A lot of people wondered if it was discrimination,” she said.
When she learned what Wang pleaded guilty to, she changed her mind.
“I think it would be improper for anyone to be doing something like that,” she said.
