Chinese American scholar Shujun Wang was convicted of using his identity as a pro-democracy activist to gather information on dissidents and transmit it to the Chinese government, specifically the Ministry of State Security, under the guise of helping pro-democracy causes in the U.S. Wang was found to have been a secret agent for the Chinese government, living a double life for over a decade. Despite his lawyers portraying him as forthcoming with U.S. authorities and disputing the direction of his communications, Wang was convicted of charges carrying up to 25 years in prison. Four Chinese officials charged with him remain at large in a case that forms part of U.S. efforts to combat “transnational repression.” The government of China denies engaging in such practices, dismissing them as slander and manipulation by the U.S. Wang had come to New York in 1994 to teach and later became a U.S. citizen. Aside from establishing a foundation honoring Chinese Communist Party leaders sympathetic to reform, Wang was found to have acted as a covert conduit of information on various critics of the Chinese government. He composed emails detailing plans and conversations of dissidents that were later accessed by Chinese intelligence officers using a shared password. Wang admitted to gathering information for Chinese intelligence but claimed it was not valuable or beyond publicly available information. Prosecutors presented his actions as part of a larger effort to monitor and undermine pro-democracy movements outside of China.
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Activist convicted in U.S. for providing China with information on dissidents is a democracy supporter
