Chinese Man Gets 4-Year Prison Sentence for Acting as Illegal Agent for China

The defendant served a pivotal role in Beijing’s efforts to influence ‘U.S. politicians in their favor at all levels of government,’ prosecutors said.

The U.S. Department of Justice in Washington on Jan. 6, 2026. Madalina Kilroy/The Epoch Times

A Chinese man who previously advised a Southern California city council member has been sentenced to four years in federal prison for acting as an illegal agent of the Chinese regime, federal prosecutors said.

Sun Yaoning, also known as Mike Sun, was arrested in December 2024. He pleaded guilty in October 2025 to one count of acting as an agent of a foreign government without prior notification to the U.S. Attorney General, from 2022 to 2024.

U.S. District Judge R. Gary Klausner sentenced Sun to four years in prison in federal court in Los Angeles on Monday, according to a news release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Central District of California.

“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,” Roman Rozhavsky, assistant director of the FBI’s Counterintelligence and Espionage Division, said in a statement.

“By exploiting his position as a campaign advisor, Yaoning Sun attempted to undermine our political processes and democratic institutions for the benefit of the Chinese Communist Party.”

Prosecutors did not name the city councilor in court documents, identifying the person only as “Individual 1,” who was elected to a city council seat in a Southern California city in November 2022. Under the direction and control of Chinese officials, Sun led a team to help elect the individual.

Sun and the individual operated a purported news website at the direction of Chinese officials to promote pro-Beijing content, according to prosecutors.

Campaign finance records suggest that in 2022, Sun served as campaign treasurer for Eileen Wang, a councilwoman for Arcadia, located about 13 miles northeast of downtown Los Angeles.

“Today’s sentencing underscores the unwavering commitment of the FBI and our partners to defending the homeland and holding accountable anyone who tries to subvert the will of American voters at the behest of our adversaries,” Rozhavsky said.

In a sentencing memorandum filed in January, prosecutors recommended that the judge sentence Sun to five years in prison, followed by three years of supervised release.

Sun once served in China’s military, the People’s Liberation Army, and was the “right-hand man” of his co-conspirator, Chen Jun, or John Chen, in the United States for decades, according to the sentencing memorandum.

Sun and Chen “engaged in sustained efforts to assist the PRC in its campaign of transnational repression and foreign malign influence in the United States, extending the PRC’s reach in its persecution of the Falun Gong and those advocating for Taiwanese independence,” prosecutors wrote in the memorandum. PRC is the acronym for the People’s Republic of China, communist China’s official name.

Chen was sentenced to 20 months in prison in November 2024 for bribing an IRS agent to act against a New York-based nonprofit organization founded by Falun Gong practitioners.

In recent years, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has intensified efforts to target its outspoken critics in the United States, using a broad range of tactics designed to intimidate and suppress dissent. The targets have included Falun Gong practitioners, a faith group that has been heavily persecuted by the CCP since 1999.

Sun also “traveled regularly to China” to meet Chinese officials and communicated with the Chinese Consulate in Los Angeles, according to the sentencing memorandum.

“He also served a pivotal role in the PRC’s efforts to ‘influence’ U.S. politicians in their favor at all levels of government,” prosecutors wrote.

Sun’s lawyers, in their sentencing memorandum filed on Jan. 27, asked the judge to sentence their client to time served, noting that he had been in custody for more than 13 months.

The lawyers argued that Sun, who moved to the United States from China in 1996, didn’t know he had to register as a foreign agent.

“None of these acts would be illegal, had Mr. Sun complied with the registration requirement he did not know existed,” the lawyers wrote.

Bill Essayli, first assistant U.S. Attorney for the Central District of California, said in a statement that “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,” Essayli stated.

The Epoch Times contacted Sun’s lawyers for comment but didn’t receive a response by publication time.