‘Pro-democracy activist’ convicted in US of acting as a covert Chinese agent
- Wang Shujun helped found a pro-democracy group and used it to gather information on dissidents, prosecutors said. He faces 25 years in prison
02:05
‘Pro-democracy activist’ convicted of acting as covert Chinese agent in US
A Chinese-American academic was convicted in the United States on Tuesday on charges of using his reputation as a pro-democracy activist to gather information on dissidents and feed it to China’s government.
A federal jury in New York delivered the verdict in the case of Wang Shujun, a naturalised US citizen who helped found a pro-democracy group in the city.
He held himself out as a critic of the Chinese government so that he could build rapport with people who actually opposed it, then betrayed their trust by telling Beijing what they said and planned, prosecutors said.
“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,” Brooklyn-based US lawyer Breon Peace said in a statement after the verdict.
Wang had pleaded not guilty. His lawyers cast him as someone who was forthcoming with US authorities about activities he saw as innocuous, and they disputed that his communications were truly under Chinese officials’ direction or control.
