Female lawmaker was romanced by attentive Chinese man… who she did not realize was a SPY

A Chinese man who swept a California politician off her feet and helped fund her campaign has been sentenced to four years in prison for being a spy. 

Arcadia Mayor Eileen Wang was previously engaged to Yaoning ‘Mike’ Sun, 65, of Chino Hills, who was jailed on Monday for acting as a political operative for China. 

He pleaded guilty in October 2025 to one count of acting as an illegal agent of a foreign government.

In 2022, he helped his then-fiancée, Wang, win a seat on Arcadia’s city council and worked as her campaign consultant. 

Her campaign’s financial records also showed that Sun paid for some of her travel expenses and his last-registered address was a home owned by Wang, according top the complaint seen by the Daily Mail.

Sun also previously served in China’s Army, according to the filing, where the FBI was able to obtain photos of him and his co-conspirator John Chen in military uniforms. 

First Assistant US Attorney Bill Essayli celebrated Sun’s imprisonment on Monday, saying in a statement: ‘Federal law enforcement will not allow hostile foreign nations to infiltrate the governance of our nation’s political bodies. 

‘The relentlessness of PRC intelligence operations in our country must be met by equal relentlessness on our part to secure, protect, and defend the United States.’ 

Prosecutors said Sun exploited his role during the campaign to ‘undermine our political processes and democratic institutions for the benefit of the Chinese Communist Party.’ 

‘When Americans vote for elected officials, they expect them to represent the interests of their constituents – not those of a foreign adversary like the Chinese government,’ Assistant Director Roman Rozhavsky of the FBI’s Counterintelligence and Espionage Division said. 

It appears Wang was unaware of the conspiracy, and will keep her political office. The Daily Mail has reached out to Wang for comment. 

From 2022 to 2024, Sun worked as an operative for China without telling the US government, which is required by law. 

While working undercover, he also surveilled the then-Taiwan President Tsai Ing-Wen during her April 2023 visit and reported her movements to China, prosecutors said. 

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