She worked with and fell in love with a SoCal councilman, while exploring China
A Southern California man worked as an undercover agent for the People’s Republic of China and helped run a local councilman in hopes that the “new political genius” would promote pro-Chinese policies in America, according to federal court documents.
While the political leader in question was still active, the agent was detained. Yaoning Sun, 65, of Chino Hills, was sentenced Monday to four years in federal prison after pleading guilty in October to one count of acting as an illegal agent for a foreign government.
Sun worked for years as an illegal agent of the People’s Republic of China, delivering reports to high-ranking government officials about the work he did on their behalf, according to a sentencing memorandum filed by state prosecutors. This work included combating Falun Gong, a spiritual practice banned in China with followers in Southern California, and the pro-Taiwanese liberation army, as well as guarding the then-president of Taiwan during his April 2023 visit to the US and publishing PRC propaganda on an online news site.
Throughout 2022, Sun worked as a campaign consultant for the politician identified as Person 1 in court records. Sources familiar with the investigation confirmed to The Times that the politician in question was Eileen Wang.
Wang won the Arcadia City Council election in November 2022 with the help of Sun, who was then his spouse and campaign coordinator. Campaign records reviewed by The Times show that the Sun helped bring in donations — some of them from sources with ties to the Chinese government.
In an April 2025 statement, Wang said his romantic relationship with Sun ended eight months before he was indicted by federal prosecutors in December 2024. On February 3 he was sworn in as mayor of the San Gabriel Valley city. He did not respond to a request for comment Monday.
Sun’s associate, John Chen, was sentenced to 20 months in prison in November 2024 on a separate charge of being an unregistered agent of the People’s Republic of China and bribing an Internal Revenue Service agent in New York.
When Sun served as Wang’s political adviser in 2022, Chen instructed him to make a list of American politicians he knew, saying it would help raise his standing in China, according to the criminal complaint. He ordered Sun to post pictures of himself campaigning, standing with a member of the US Congress and the ambassador of the People’s Republic of China to the United States.
That same year, the National Counterintelligence and Security Center sent a report to local officials nationwide noting that China “understands that US state and local leaders enjoy independence from Washington and may seek to use them as proxies to advocate for US national policies desired by Beijing.”
Sun was represented by public defenders, who recommended a sentence of more than 15 months. In the sentencing memorandum, they wrote that Lang immigrated to the US from China in 1996 and became part of the Chinese community in the San Gabriel Valley.
They wrote: “He has lived a law-abiding life for decades, raising his children and working in various cultural fields. “Now, at the age of 65, Mr. Sun pleaded guilty to agreeing to work as an agent of the PRC without registering with the Attorney General.”
They argue that he has a very low chance of reoffending and should be given a lighter sentence.
Federal prosecutors took a different stance, recommending in a sentencing letter that Sun be sentenced to 60 months in prison and three years of supervised release because he “played a key role in the PRC’s efforts to influence US politicians in their favor at all levels of government.”
Prosecutors also said that China poses a serious threat to US national security and that it is a top national priority to detect and suppress “bad foreign influence and foreign repression campaigns.”
“Therefore, in order to properly demonstrate the seriousness of the crime and deter others who would do the same as an unregistered foreign agent in the United States, a greater sentence is required,” prosecutors wrote.
On Monday, US District Judge R. Gary Klausner sentenced Sun to 48 months in state prison.
Roman Rozhavsky, deputy director of the FBI’s Counterintelligence and Espionage Division, praised the sentence, saying it shows the agency’s commitment to responding to anyone who tries to undermine the will of the American electorate at the behest of foreign enemies.
“When Americans vote for elected officials, they expect them to represent the interests of their constituents — not foreign adversaries like the Chinese government,” Rozhavsky said in a statement. “By exploiting her position as a campaign consultant, Yaoning Sun attempted to undermine our political processes and democratic institutions for the benefit of the Chinese Communist Party.”
Times staff writers Hannah Fry, Richard Winton and Rebecca Ellis contributed to this report.
