A campaign manager who helped elect a candidate in California has been arrested after federal authorities accused him of being a foreign agent who tried to push for positions favorable to the Chinese government.
Yaoning "Mike" Sun, 64, of Chino Hills, was arrested Thursday and expected to appear in federal court the same day, prosecutors said in a news release. Prosecutors said he acted as an illegal agent of the People’s Republic of China while serving as the campaign manager for a political candidate who was elected two years ago to the city council.
Sun additionally conspired with Chen Jun, who was sentenced to prison last month for bribery and acting as an illegal agent of the Chinese government.
During the candidate's campaign, Sun talked with Chen about getting the candidate elected.
"In 2022 and early 2023, CHEN was in active communication with PRC government officials regarding local U.S. politicians the PRC could 'influence,' particularly regarding Taiwan, and specifically communicated with them regarding Individual 1’s election," court documents alleged. "In his conversations with PRC government officials, CHEN referred to SUN and Individual 1 as being part of a 'basic team dedicated for us.'"
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Chen and Sun were in frequent contact, authorities said, with Chen ordering him to submit reports on the election that were then sent to the United Front Work Department of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party, as well as an unnamed high-ranking official known as the "Big Boss." In one report, they asked for $80,000 from the Chinese government to support pro-China activities in the United States, the documents said.
Furthermore, Sun previously served in the People’s Liberation Army of China, and the FBI has photos of both men in military uniforms. Other photos and videos showed Chen shaking hands with Chinese President Xi Jinping and attending a pro-Taiwan protest in Los Angeles, where authorities said he threatened protesters with arrest if they returned to China.
Court documents alleged that Chen told his cellmate he was a "Chinese spy" working for an agency that was "100 times better than the FBI."
Sun is listed as a campaign treasurer for Arcadia city council candidate Eileen Wang, The Associated Press reported. Wang successfully ran for city council in 2022.
“We’ve seen a trend in which officials of the People’s Republic of China seek to influence the political system of our country, and they are doing so by taking a broad approach, including government officials who may be local, who may not be yet on a national stage,” Martin Estrada, the U.S. attorney in Los Angeles, told reporters on a call, according to The New York Times.
