A Chinese national has been charged with acting as an illegal agent for the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) while serving as the campaign manager for a California politician.
Yaoning “Mike” Sun was arrested and accused of conspiring with Chen Jun, who was also convicted for acting as a CCP agent.
The candidate Sun worked for has not been named.
According to The New York Times, officials believe the CCP is becoming involved in local elections as a “long-term investment,” as “successful local officials often seek higher office and can make introductions to more senior politicians.”
Martin Estrada, a U.S. attorney in Los Angeles, told reporters, “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.”
“So it’s definitely a long game approach that we are seeing from the People’s Republic of China,” he added.
Chen instructed Sun to write a report for Chinese officials, according to an affidavit. Other writings described the California city councilperson as a “new political star,” the Associated Press reported.
The report comes as Manhattan resident Chen Jinping pleaded guilty to conspiring to act as an agent of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) after he operated a secret police station in the city on behalf of the PRC’s Ministry of Public Security (MPS). The defendants worked to establish the “first known overseas police station in the United States on behalf of the Fuzhou branch of the MPS.” The police station, which closed in 2022, operated from an “entire floor in an office building in Manhattan’s Chinatown.”