SoCal Mayor Eileen Wang’ssecret agent caseis just the latest in China’s ‘nefarious long game’ to control California and U.S. politics, First Assistant U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli told The California Post.
Wang resigned from mayor of the San Gabriel Valley city of Arcadia on Monday, the same day federal prosecutors unsealed her guilty plea deal foracting as a secret agentof the People’s Republic of China.
Essayli said Wang’s rise in SoCal politics reflects China’s desire to further its interests by planting its assets in local government, with hopes that that its PRC loyalists may grow their political careers and rise to high office, where they can do real damage.
“They’re very nefarious,” said Essayli, whose office is prosecuting Wang’s Chinese secret agent case. “They play the long game to get people into office.”
Besides influencing policy, the PRC is also concerned with punishing dissidents in the U.S., Essayli said.
Cui Guanghai of China and John Miller of the United Kingdom last year were charged in Los Angeles and Milwaukee with stalking, smuggling and illegal arms export after they tried to silence a Chinese expat living in Southern California who spoke out against top leader Xi Jinping.
A Federal Bureau of Investigation sting nabbed Guanghai and Miller for carrying a scheme to surveil the victim, install a tracking device on his car, slash the tires on his car, and purchase and destroy a pair of artistic statues the victim made depicting President Xi and President Xi’s wife.
Guanghai and Miller also paid undercover FBI assets $36,500 to convince their SoCal victim to desist from the online display of the anti-Xi statues he made.
In Wisconsin, the pair attempted to buy components of missiles, air defense radar, drones, and cryptographic devices with associated crypto ignition keys for the PRC, according to the FBI.
They fled to Hungary to evade capture by the FBI, and then to Serbia where they were apprehended by local authorities and forced to wear ankle monitors under house arrest, Essayli said.
Source: California Post – Breaking California News, Photos & Videos
