Trial Begins for Bronx Man Accused of Operating Unauthorized Chinese Government Office in Manhattan

The trial of Lu Jianwang began Wednesday in Brooklyn federal court on charges that he ran a secret Chinese government outpost in Manhattan and helped Beijing spy on a pro-democracy dissident. ” Lu Jianwang has pleaded not guilty to failing to register as a foreign agent and obstructing justice. He was arrested at his Bronx home in 2023 along with co-defendant Chen Jinping.

Lu Jianwang remains out on bond during the trial, which is expected to last one week. The case accuses Lu Jianwang of illegally acting as a Chinese agent by helping Beijing spy on a pro-democracy dissident. He took orders from China’s Ministry of Public Security to monitor a Big Apple-based dissident from the glass-windowed six-story building at 107 East Broadway.

U.S. citizen for decades and leader of the America Changle Association, opened the Chinatown site in 2022. He had returned from a ceremony in China where government officials announced they would be opening 30 secret outposts at sites all over the world, Oken said.

U.S. authorities and is out on bond pending sentencing after Lu Jianwang’s trial. ” With an American flag pin on the lapel of his dark suit, he listened to a Fujianese translation of the opening statements through an earpiece and showed little emotion.

Baimadajie Angwang, a former NYPD officer cleared in 2023 of similar federal charges accusing him of spying on behalf of China, sat at the defense table and is serving as an investigator for Lu Jianwang’s defense team. Defense lawyer John Carman told jurors the alleged secret “police station” was merely an innocuous community center.

Locals gathered there to play ping pong and mahjong, and the community relied on Lu Jianwang for help renewing their Chinese driver’s licenses remotely when travel back to their homeland was shut down during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“He’s not an agent of Chinese intelligence … He’s an agent of the people of his community,” Carman said. New York Post reported that the dissident is expected to testify during the trial.

U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District called a sweeping crackdown on China’s efforts to silence regime dissenters across the globe. The office at 107 East Broadway served as the physical base for the operation prosecutors described.