Chinese Influence Operations Target US Politics, Business and Research

Federal prosecutors have secured convictions and guilty pleas in multiple cases involving Chinese Communist Party influence activities in the United States. In the past week, the mayor of Arcadia, California, Eileen Wang, resigned after pleading guilty to working as a foreign agent for China.

In New York City, Lu “Harry” Jianwang, a Chinatown community leader, was convicted in Brooklyn federal court for operating a secret Chinese Communist Party police station. Changli “Sophia” Luo, a Chinese national, was charged with attempting to blackmail Milwaukee Bucks owner Wes Edens for more than a billion dollars.

Luo was arrested after booking a flight to Hong Kong and was bailed out of jail by Robin Mui, identified in court papers as a Chinese foreign agent. Mui serves as the New York-based CEO of Sing Tao, a pro-CCP newspaper. He traveled to China in 2014 with Eric Adams, who would later become New York City mayor.

Kevin Hecht, a retired FBI agent who spent 20 years investigating Chinese counterintelligence, said the cases represent only a small portion of reported activity. “This is just the tip of the iceberg,” Hecht said. The New York Post reported on several tactics attributed to Chinese operatives, both legal and illegal.

Andrew Cuomo and later as an aide to Gov. Kathy Hochul, faces accusations of forging Hochul’s signature on official letters to steer state policy toward Chinese national interests. Her case ended in a mistrial last year. According to court documents, Sun told handlers in a Jan.

” Hecht told The Post that Sun worked to prevent official recognition of Taiwan-related events. In California, Christine Fang, also known as “Fang Fang,” stands accused of developing extensive ties with Rep. The New York Post reported that she bundled donations for his 2014 re-election campaign and recommended staff for his office.

Wang faces up to 10 years in prison for promoting Chinese propaganda through a website aimed at the local Chinese community from 2022 to 2024.

Federal authorities charged ten Chinese nationals last year with a hacking operation targeting media companies, the New York State Assembly, and foreign ministries in Taiwan, India and South Korea. The years-long campaign was carried out at the direction of the Chinese Communist Party by China-based companies including i-Soon, a Shanghai private cybersecurity firm, according to the Department of Justice.

The operation involved hacking email accounts, cell phones, servers and websites of individuals who had been critical of the Chinese government or in contact with the U.S. government. Linwei Ding, a former Google software engineer, was found guilty earlier this year of seven counts of economic espionage and seven counts of theft of trade secrets.

Court papers say the stolen material, including thousands of pages of Google trade secrets, was intended to help China’s artificial intelligence sector. In a separate case, Yunhai Li, a researcher at MD Anderson Cancer Center, pleaded guilty to stealing U.S.-funded breast cancer research and uploading it to a Chinese server before resigning in July 2025.

He was sentenced to one year in prison. Chinese-American Navy sailor Jinchao Wei was sentenced in January to 16 years in prison for selling national defense information to a Chinese intelligence officer for $12,000.

Since 2004, China has funded Confucius Institutes at U.S. colleges to teach Chinese language and culture. By 2020 there were 75 operating in the United States, 65 of them on university campuses, according to the U.S. Department of State. The institutes also sponsored more than 500 K-12 classrooms.

The official number has since fallen to 10, though some researchers say the programs have rebranded. Beijing launched Operation Fox Hunt in 2014 to repatriate dissidents. The effort included establishing more than 100 police stations in foreign countries.

In New Jersey, retired NYPD sergeant Michael McMahon was convicted of acting as an illegal agent for China in a harassment scheme targeting a dissident, served 18 months in prison, and was pardoned by President Trump last year. Chinese investors purchased U.S. farmland, with The Post identifying up to 384,000 acres in 2024 located close to military installations.

The Biden administration barred U.S. government officials in China from having sex with Chinese nationals, a policy President Trump has continued.