Key keywords: Arcadia mayor Eileen Wang, unregistered foreign agent for China, FARA violation plea deal, US Department of Justice, California local government, Chinese foreign influence, Arcadia municipal policy, foreign agent registration requirement On Wednesday, Arcadia mayor Eileen Wang entered a guilty plea in a Los Angeles federal court as part of a negotiated plea deal with the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), formally admitting that she acted as an unregistered foreign agent for the Chinese government for more than three years during her tenure in local office. Wang, a first-generation Chinese American who was elected mayor of the Los Angeles County city of 58,000 residents in 2020, was first investigated by federal counterintelligence officials in early 2022 after reports surfaced that she had repeatedly failed to disclose multiple paid trips to China hosted by the Chinese People’s Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries (CPAFFC), an organization classified by U.S. intelligence as a front for Chinese foreign influence operations. According to court documents filed as part of the plea agreement, Wang’s activities on behalf of the Chinese government included lobbying fellow Arcadia city council members to approve a sister-city partnership with a municipality in Jiangsu province, sharing non-public internal documents about upcoming Arcadia infrastructure bidding processes with Chinese government contacts, and pushing for preferential tax and zoning treatment for Chinese state-owned enterprises looking to set up operations in the city. All of these activities fall under the scope of the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA), which requires any individual acting on behalf of a foreign government to register their activities with the DOJ and disclose all related compensation and communications. Under the terms of the plea deal, Wang has agreed to resign from her position as mayor immediately, cooperate fully with ongoing federal investigations into broader Chinese influence operations targeting California local governments, and pay a $120,000 fine. She faces a maximum sentence of 5 years in federal prison when she is sentenced in January 2024, though federal prosecutors have indicated they will recommend a reduced sentence in exchange for her full cooperation. In a statement released Wednesday afternoon, the Arcadia City Council announced that it had appointed Mayor Pro Tem Paul Becker to serve as interim mayor effective immediately, and has launched a full audit of all city contracts, partnerships, and policy votes that Wang was involved in during her time in office. Local residents have also called for a full public review of the sister-city agreement Wang pushed through in 2021, which many critics said offered excessive benefits to Chinese government affiliated groups with no clear benefit to Arcadia residents. A DOJ spokesperson said in a press briefing following the plea hearing that the case is a key milestone in the agency’s ongoing efforts to crack down on unregistered foreign influence at the local government level, noting that local elected officials are often targeted by foreign governments because they have significant power over zoning, business permitting, and public spending, and are subject to far less national security scrutiny than federal elected officials.