Chinese academic convicted of acting as foreign agent in US

By Luc Cohen

NEW YORK (Reuters) -A Chinese academic was convicted on Tuesday of illegally acting as a foreign agent in the United States by collecting information about New York-based activists supporting democracy in China and sharing his findings with Beijing.

A jury found Wang Shujun guilty on four counts including acting as a foreign agent without notifying the U.S. attorney general and lying to U.S. authorities, following a week-long trial in Brooklyn federal court.

Wang could face up to 25 years in prison when he is sentenced on Jan. 9, 2025.

Federal prosecutors said Wang, a naturalized U.S. citizen, portrayed himself as a fierce opponent of the ruling Chinese Communist Party to gain the trust of Hong Kong pro-democracy activists, advocates for Taiwanese independence and campaigners for Uyghur and Tibetan rights.

Prosecutors said Wang was actually spying on the activists and sharing his findings with four officials in China's Ministry of State Security (MSS), an intelligence service.

"The indictment could have been the plot of a spy novel, but the evidence is shockingly real," Breon Peace, the top federal prosecutor in the New York City borough of Brooklyn, said in a statement. "Wang was willing to betray those who respected and trusted him."

Wang, who emigrated to the United States in 1994, was arrested in March 2022.

Defense lawyer Zachary Margulis-Ohnuma said Wang spoke to the intelligence officials about the pro-democracy movement to win their support and promote social change, and was not acting as their agent.

Margulis-Ohnuma said he respected the jury's verdict and would request a sentence that spares Wang the "agony" of prison.

"We look forward to sentencing," Margulis-Ohnuma told reporters after the verdict. "He's a 76-year-old man. He certainly didn't mean to hurt anyone. He's spent his life fighting the communist regime."

The U.S. Department of Justice has in recent years cracked down on what it calls "transnational repression" by U.S. adversaries such as China and Iran.

That term refers to the surveillance, intimidation and in some cases attempted repatriation or murder of activists against those governments.

Last year, a former New York City police sergeant was convicted of acting as a Chinese agent by intimidating a U.S.-based fugitive to return to his homeland and face charges.

U.S. prosecutors have also charged four Chinese intelligence officers who allegedly acted as Wang's handlers. Those officers are at large and believed to be in China.

(Reporting by Luc Cohen in New YorkEditing by Matthew Lewis)