A naturalized American citizen was convicted by a federal jury on Tuesday on four counts for acting as an agent for the Chinese Communist Party without properly notifying U.S. authorities.
In a Tuesday press release, the U.S. Justice Department announced that 75-year-old Shujun Wang, who is a naturalized American citizen of Chinese descent, was convicted on four counts after being charged with acting and conspiring to act as an agent for the Chinese government without notifying the U.S. attorney general, for making false statements to law enforcement officials, and for the criminal use of identification.
“This defendant infiltrated a New York-based advocacy group by masquerading as a pro-democracy activist all while covertly collecting and reporting sensitive information about its members to the PRC’s intelligence service,” Assistant Attorney General Matthew G. Olsen of the Justice Department’s National Security Division, said in Tuesday’s press release. “Today’s verdict demonstrates that those who would seek to advance the Chinese government’s agenda of transnational repression will be held accountable.”
The Justice Department explained that Wang was one of the founders of the Hu Yaobang and Zhao Ziyang Memorial Foundation, which is a pro-democracy organization in Flushing, Queens.
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The Justice Department said the members of the organization are “well-known pro-democracy dissidents” who oppose the Chinese Communist Party, but that “instead of promoting democracy in the PRC, Wang, at the direction of PRC government officials, used his position within the Memorial Foundation and his status within the Chinese diaspora community to collect information about prominent activists, academics and dissidents, and reported that information to the PRC government.”
Court documents revealed that Wang had been operating under the direction of four of China’s Ministry of State Security officials since at least 2006. Under the direction of the Ministry of State Security, Wang collected intelligence on individuals and groups considered subversive to the PRC, including Taiwanese independence advocates, Hong Kong protesters, Uyghur and Tibetan activists, according to the Justice Department.
“Wang conducted face-to-face meetings with MSS officials while on trips to the PRC and used an encrypted messaging application to receive taskings from his co-defendants and to send and receive written messages and files,” the Justice Department stated.
The Justice Department said Wang also stored information he collected from private conversations with democracy activists and Chinese dissidents in email “diaries” that were shared with Ministry of State Security officials. Law enforcement officials found roughly 163 of Wang’s “diary” entries at his residence.
Wang is currently scheduled to be sentenced in January and could face up to 25 years in prison.
