According to an indictment unsealed last week in Manhattan, Yuanjun Tang, 67, a New York based Chinese-American pro-democracy activist has been charged federally for allegedly spying on fellow political dissidents for the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).
Authorities say Tang, a resident of Flushing, was secretly working for the Chinese Ministry of State Security (MSS) between 2018 and 2023, at which time he conspired to work as a foreign agent of China, but failed to properly register with American authorities, the court documents say.
Tang was once imprisoned in China following the 1989 pro-democracy protests in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square, and later became a naturalized citizen of the United States.
“In 2002, he defected to Taiwan and was then granted political asylum in the U.S. where he has regularly worked with fellow Chinese dissidents,” the New York Post reported.
Tang was a regular sight at demonstrations against the Communist authorities in China, which included monthly protests in front of the Chinese consulate in Manhattan.
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However, it’s alleged that Tang used these demonstrations as cover to collect and then funnel information to communist authorities about his fellow dissidents.
The court papers allege, “Specifically, Tang regularly provided information Tang had gathered about individuals and groups viewed by the People’s Republic of China (PRC) as potentially adverse to the PRC’s interests, particularly US-based Chinese democracy activists and dissidents [to his handler].”
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His alleged target
According to court documents, one of Tang’s alleged marks included a past Congressional candidate, Xiong Yan, a pro-democracy activist, who was forced to pull out of the race after being targeted with what Yan called a smear campaign
Yan, an Iraqi war veteran who ran for Congress in Brooklyn in 2022, dropped out at the time knowing he was the victim of spying by an unregistered Chinese agent, according to exclusive reporting by the NY Post.
Yan, also a pastor, said part of the smear campaign targeting him was being set up with a prostitute, which caused him to lose face in the community and ultimately made fundraising impossible.
In addition, part of Tang’s alleged espionage work included two trips — one to Macau in 2019 and another to China in 2023 — for face-to-face meetings with his communist handlers, the court documents say.
The documents also say that Tang received cash payments for siphoning information to his handlers about fellow dissidents and pro-democracy events in the United States.
The complaint says that in at least one instance, Tang met with an MSS official who installed a “bug” in his mobile device which allowed photos and videos to be transmitted directly to communist authorities in China.
He allegedly used this phone to document and send information directly to Communist China about an event at the opening of a June 4th Memorial Museum.
The pop-up museum, established to commemorate the Tiananmen Square massacre, opened last year in a Herald Square office building, after the original museum, located in Hong Kong, was shuttered.
