On Tuesday, a Chinese academic was convicted of illegally working as a foreign agent in the US after he collected information on New York-based activists supporting democracy in China and shared his information with Beijing.
Following a week-long trial in Brooklyn federal court, a jury found Wang Shujun guilty on four counts, including acting as a foreign agent without notifying the US attorney general and lying to US authorities.
Federal prosecutors said Wang, a naturalized U.S. citizen, presented himself as a staunch opponent of the ruling Chinese Communist Party to gain the trust of Hong Kong pro-democracy activists, Taiwan independence advocates and Uighur and Tibetan rights campaigners.
Prosecutors said Wang was actually spying on the activists and sharing his investigations with four officers from China’s intelligence service, the Ministry of State Security (MSS).
“He was leading a double life,” prosecutor Neena Gupta said in her closing arguments on Monday. “That double life has now been exposed.”
Wang, who moved to the United States in 1994, was arrested in March 2022.
Defense lawyer Zachary Margulies-Ohnuma said Wang had spoken to intelligence officers about the pro-democracy movement to gain their support and promote social change, and was not acting as their agent.
“Why would someone who has dedicated his life to overthrowing the Chinese regime want to help the Chinese regime?” Margulies-Ohnuma said in a statement Monday.
The US Justice Department has in recent years taken tough action against “international repression” carried out by US adversaries such as China and Iran.
The term refers to the surveillance, intimidation, and in some cases attempted extradition or assassination of activists against those governments.
Last year, a former New York City police sergeant was convicted of working as a Chinese agent by intimidating an American fugitive into returning to his country and facing charges.
US prosecutors have also charged four Chinese intelligence officers who were allegedly Wang’s handlers. Those officers are on the run and are believed to be in China.
(This story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
