California man gets 4 years prison for acting as illegal agent for China

LOS ANGELES (CN) — A Southern California immigrant from China, who served as the campaign manager of a local politician, was sentenced to four years in federal prison on Monday for acting as an agent for the People’s Republic of China without notifying U.S. authorities.

Yaoning “Mike” Sun, 65, pleaded guilty last year to acting in the U.S. as an illegal agent of a foreign government.

Sun was arrested in December 2024, because, federal prosecutors claimed, he had sought to influence U.S. politicians on the issue of Taiwan and to promote activities against “anti-China forces” in the U.S., including practitioners of Falun Gong — a spiritual practice banned by China’s authoritarian government.

According to the criminal complaint, Sun served as the campaign manager and close personal confidante for a Southern California politician who was running for local elected office in 2022, described in the affidavit as “Individual 1.” The politician was successfully elected to a city council position in 2022.

“Federal law enforcement will not allow hostile foreign nations to infiltrate the governance of our nation’s political bodies,” First Assistant United States Attorney Bill Essayli said in a statement. “The relentlessness of PRC intelligence operations in our country must be met by equal relentlessness on our part to secure, protect, and defend the United States.”

From at least 2022 to January 2024, Sun knowingly acted within the U.S. as an agent of the Chinese government without notifying the attorney general as required by law, according to the government.

At the direction of Chinese officials, federal prosecutors say, Sun and Individual 1 worked together to operate a purported news website for the local Chinese American community. Sun and Individual 1 received and executed directives from Chinese government officials to post pro-PRC content.

He also closely surveilled the April 2023 visit of then-Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen to Southern California and reported directly to PRC officials on her movements.

In an unsuccessful bid to be sentenced to time served, Sun, through his federal public defender, argued that he didn’t know he had to register as a foreign agent and that none of his actions on behalf of China were in themselves illegal.

“None of these acts would be illegal, had Mr. Sun complied with the registration requirement he did not know existed,” his lawyer said in Sun’s sentencing memorandum. “Even his most unseemly conduct — tracking the public movements of President Ing-Wen, or photographing individuals rallying in public to support her — is not inherently criminal.”

The government, in turn, had asked for a five-year sentence, but U.S. District Judge R. Gary Klausner, a George W. Bush appointee, decided on four years instead.

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