A federal court in New York on Tuesday convicted naturalized U.S. citizen Wang Shujun of working as an agent for China’s Ministry of State Security (MSS).
Wang is accused of posing as a democratic activist to spy on real opponents of Beijing’s Communist Party oppression. He could face up to 25 years in prison.
“The indictment may have been the plot of a John le Carré or Graham Greene spy novel, but the evidence that the defendants spent years posing as democracy activists while secretly passing information to the Chinese government is shockingly true,” said Breon Peace, U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York. Said After the verdict was handed down.
Wang, 75, arrested In March 2022, he was indicted along with four others for “stalking, harassing, and spying on U.S. residents on behalf of the People’s Republic of China (PRC).” Their plots reportedly ranged from meddling in U.S. elections to plotting to destroy artwork critical of the Chinese Communist Party and its leader, Xi Jinping.
The defendants are accused of conducting sophisticated electronic surveillance of their victims, even in a minor plot to destroy dissident artwork, allegedly involving studding artists’ studios and cars with hidden cameras and GPS tracking devices.
Wang is a visiting Chinese scholar who helped found a pro-democracy group called the Hu Yaobang and Zhao Ziyang Memorial Foundation near his home in Flushing, Queens.
Hu Yaobang Zhao Ziyang was a reform-minded Chinese Communist Party leader whose death in 1989 led to the Tiananmen Square massacre, in which China massacred protesters. Opposed The insistence on using lethal force to quell student protests, in the name of the foundation, sent a strong message to serious pro-democracy activists.
According to the Department of Justice (DOJ), Wang began working as an agent for China’s National Security Agency (NSA) around 2015. The NSA saw this as a perfect opportunity to use Wang as a spy against genuine activists and dissidents with whom Wang had built relationships.
According to the Justice Department, Wang not only spied on people attending meetings of his pro-democracy group in Queens, but also contacted Hong Kong dissidents, Taiwanese independence activists, Tibetan activists and members of the oppressed Uighur community in East Turkestan, which China calls the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region.
Wang began providing a detailed “diary” of his conversations with all these people to state security officials, who allegedly instructed him to target dissidents and activists he particularly found problematic. U.S. prosecutors obtained copies of emails between Wang and a Chinese intelligence chief, including one in which the state security official sent a thumbs-up emoji to Wang after he reported on human rights activists critical of China.
The charges against Wang include lying when questioned by federal law enforcement officials about his contacts with Chinese officials and MSS agents, and he was arrested for leaking details of his espionage activities to undercover law enforcement officers.
“The defendant is a perfect puppet of the Chinese Communist Party, a renowned scholar and founder of a pro-democracy organization, and he was willing to betray those who respected and trusted him,” Peace said of Wang on Tuesday.
“Today’s sentence demonstrates that those who seek to further the Chinese government’s transnational repression agenda will be held accountable,” said Assistant Attorney General Matthew G. Olsen of the Justice Department’s National Security Division.
of The New York Times (NYT) Tuesday I got it. Wang’s is the latest in a series of high-profile prosecutions in China’s international crackdown that appear to be intensifying as relations with China deteriorate.
Wang remained “expressionless” throughout the trial. The New York Times But outside the courtroom, he was animated and protested in Mandarin Chinese against the guilty verdict, which he said silenced real voices calling for reform in China.
“They’ve got the evidence wrong. It’s unfair. They’re playing with justice. It’s a fabrication,” he said, a claim that is rather hard to square with his admission in 2021 during FBI interrogation that he had numerous contacts with MSS officials.
Wang’s lawyer, Zachary Margulis Onuma, described Wang’s incriminating text messages as “the vain thoughts of a lonely old man living in Chinatown”.
“He never intended to hurt anyone. He spent his life fighting the communist regime and, you know, life is complicated,” Margulis Oonuma said.
