Man known as pro-democracy activist convicted in U.S. of giving China intel on dissidents
A Chinese American scholar was convicted of U.S. charges that he used his image as a pro-democracy activist to share information about dissidents with Beijing.
NEW YORK — A Chinese American scholar was convicted Tuesday of U.S. charges of using his reputation as a pro-democracy activist to gather information on dissidents and feed it to his homeland’s government.
A federal jury in New York delivered the verdict in the case of Shujun Wang, who helped found a pro-democracy group in the city.
Prosecutors said that at the behest of China’s main intelligence agency, the Ministry of State Security, Wang lived a double life for over a decade. 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 U.S. attorney Breon Peace said in a statement after the verdict.
Wang had pleaded not guilty. His lawyers cast him as someone who was forthcoming with U.S. authorities about activities he saw as innocuous, and they disputed that his communications were truly under Chinese officials’ direction or control.
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