Chinese Dissident in New York Pleads Guilty to Spying for Beijing

NEW YORK — A member of New York’s Chinese dissident community pleaded guilty Tuesday to acting as an agent of the Chinese government by collecting information on fellow activists, federal prosecutors said.

Yuanjun Tang, 68, who founded a pro-democracy nonprofit in Flushing, Queens, and frequently protested outside China’s Manhattan consulate, admitted in federal court that he accepted direction from a Chinese intelligence officer to photograph and record local demonstrations and to compile information on dissidents and immigration attorneys, according to court filings and a Justice Department statement.

Prosecutors said Tang agreed to the tasks in hopes of obtaining approval to visit family in China. They said he recorded a 2023 Manhattan event commemorating victims of the Tiananmen Square massacre and provided the officer with a list of immigration lawyers working with dissidents seeking asylum. Authorities charged Tang last August.

"Tang’s betrayal of the ideals of the US to help the Chinese government repress pro-democracy activists goes against the very values he claimed to promote," FBI Assistant Director in Charge Christopher G. Raia said in a statement.

Tang was granted asylum in the United States in 2002 after fleeing to Taiwan following a 12-year prison term in China for his role in student-led protests tied to Tiananmen Square, according to contemporaneous reports. After settling in Queens, he founded the Chinese Democracy Party Eastern US Headquarters Inc. and became a visible and vocal critic of the Chinese Communist Party, participating in monthly demonstrations and community events.

An email to Tang’s attorney seeking comment was not returned.

The guilty plea comes amid a series of U.S. prosecutions addressing what officials describe as Beijing’s campaign of "transnational repression," targeting critics, critics’ families and communities abroad. Last year, a Chinese American scholar, Shujun Wang, was convicted in New York on charges tied to gathering information on Hong Kong democracy protesters and supporters of Taiwanese independence, as well as Uyghur and Tibetan activists. In a separate case in 2022, the Justice Department charged two men accused of helping establish an apparent Chinese police outpost in Manhattan’s Chinatown.

Court documents do not indicate that Tang’s reporting led to arrests or other actions by Chinese authorities. He faces sentencing in January and a statutory maximum of five years in prison for the offense to which he pleaded guilty.

In interviews and writings over the years, Tang expressed complex views on exile and dissent. In 2018, speaking about a book in which his story was featured, he told The New York Times, "In the first year you speak brave, bold words. In the second, nonsense. By the third, you have nothing to say at all." The remark reflected his evolution from a jailed dissident in China to an outspoken activist living in the United States.

The case underscores tensions within diaspora communities as U.S. investigators increasingly scrutinize efforts by foreign governments to monitor, influence or intimidate critics overseas. Federal prosecutors have said such cases are a growing focus of law enforcement as they seek to protect civil society and immigration attorneys who assist people fleeing persecution.

Tang’s plea will be followed by a sentencing hearing in January, where a federal judge will determine his punishment within the statutory range.