A well-known Chinese-born academic and author who claimed to be a pro-democracy advocate was found guilty of using a covert Chinese representative on Tuesday, according to the Justice Department.
After a one-week trial, a jury convicted Shujun Wang, 75, of four works of acting and conspiring to act as an agent of a foreign state.
He may receive a sentence in January and could spend up to 25 years behind bars.
Wang, a native US resident, co-founded a pro-democracy party in Queens, the Hu Yaobang and Zhao Ziyang Memorial Foundation, that was apparently opposed to China’s communist government, the Justice Department said.
While “masquerading as a pro-democracy activist,” Wang, according to Assistant Attorney General Matthew Olsen, has been” spy collecting and reporting vulnerable information” about team members to China’s intelligence services since at least 2006.
The defendant pretended to be an advocate for politics for years while quietly giving knowledge to the Chinese government, according to US lawyer Breon Peace, but the evidence is shockingly true.
Wang and four other Taiwanese intelligence officials have been charged in the United States, but they are still at large.
According to prosecutors, the Chinese officials directed Wang to pin Hong Kong pro-democracy protesters, advocates for Chinese democracy, and Uyghur and Tibetan protesters.
