Chinese American Posing as Pro-Democracy Activist Is Convicted of Spying for China

Wang Shujun stands outside federal court in Brooklyn, New York, on July 30, 2024. (Cai Rong/The Epoch Times)

A prominent Chinese American scholar based in New York was convicted Aug. 6 on charges he lived a double life as a spy for communist China for over a decade.

Wang Shujun, a 75-year-old naturalized U.S. citizen, established himself as a critic of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and co-founded a pro-democracy organization in New York. However, behind the facade was a man who spied on pro-democracy activists and shared his findings with four officials in China’s top intelligence agency, the Ministry of State Security (MSS), according to prosecutors.

A jury found Wang guilty on four counts, including acting as a foreign agent without notifying the U.S. attorney general and making false statements to law enforcement officers, following a seven-day trial in Brooklyn federal court.

“The indictment could have been the plot of a spy novel, but the evidence is shockingly real that the defendant was a secret agent for the Chinese government,” said U.S. Attorney Breon Peace for the Eastern District of New York in a statement after the verdict.

“Posing as a well-known academic and founder of a pro-democracy organization, Wang was willing to betray those who respected and trusted him.”

Wang was arrested in March 2022. He is scheduled to be sentenced on Jan. 9 next year and faces up to 25 years in prison. Four MSS officials who were also charged remain at large.

Wang’s case demonstrates the Chinese regime’s ongoing efforts to silence and intimidate dissidents living overseas through a tactic called transnational repression. Last year, the FBI arrested two men on charges of operating a secret police station in New York City in coordination with the regime’s Ministry of Public Security.

“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,” said Assistant Attorney General Matthew G. Olsen of the Justice Department’s National Security Division in a statement.

“Today’s verdict demonstrates that those who would seek to advance the Chinese government’s agenda of transnational repression will be held accountable.”

Defense lawyer Zachary Margulis-Ohnuma said after the verdict that “there was no evidence that what he did caused any harm, was of any benefit to the Chinese government.” He added that his client is “a patriotic American who has devoted his life to fighting the authoritarian regime in China.”

‘Diary’

Wang came to the United States in 1994 as a visiting scholar at a university in New York, according to a court document. In 2006, he co-founded the Hu Yaobang and Zhao Ziyang Memorial Foundation, named after two former reformist leaders of the Chinese regime.

According to prosecutors, Wang operated under the direction of the four MSS officials since at least 2006. Under their direction, he gathered information about individuals and groups that the CCP considers subversive, including Hong Kong pro-democracy protesters, advocates for Taiwan’s official independence, and Uyghur and Tibetan activists.

To communicate with his handlers, Wang took trips to China, communicated with them via the Chinese messaging app WeChat, and compiled information he collected into email “diaries” that were accessible by the MSS, according to prosecutors.

According to the court document, Wang wrote one such “diary” entry on March 15, 2016, sharing his “analysis” of potential protests during CCP leader Xi Jinping’s upcoming trip to the United States.

That year, Xi traveled to Washington to attend a nuclear security summit and met with then-U.S. President Barack Obama on the sidelines of the event.

Wang drafted another “diary” on Nov. 16, 2016, which contained a “recitation of his telephone conversation” with a Hong Kong dissident, the court documented stated, without naming the dissident. However, it said the dissident was arrested in Hong Kong on April 18, 2020, and received two concurrent jail sentences of 18 months on May 28, 2021.

In addition, Hong Kong activists Figo Chan, Lee Cheuk-yan, Albert Ho, and Leung Kwok-hung were handed two 18-month jail terms on May 28, 2021, over a banned protest on Oct. 1, 2019, which is China’s “national holiday.”

Law enforcement officials recovered from Wang’s residence about 163 “diary” entries he wrote to the four MSS officials, according to prosecutors.

The names of the four MSS officials are He Feng, Ji Jie, Li Ming, and Lu Keqing. According to prosecutors, He and Li were based in southern China’s Guangdong Province, while Ji and Lu were based in the northern Chinese city of Qingdao.

Wang flew to Hong Kong on Jan. 28, 2017, under the direction of Li, and his airfare was paid for by He, according to the court document.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officials searched Wang’s luggage at John F. Kennedy International Airport on April 12, 2019, after his arrival on a flight from China.

According to the court document, CBP officials found in his possession a “black address book containing numerous handwritten entries with contact information for PRC officials,” including the four MSS officials. PRC is an acronym for China’s official name, the People’s Republic of China.

The Associated Press contributed to this article.