By Tenzin Nyidon

DHARAMSHALA, Aug 8: Wang Shujun, a Chinese-American academic, was convicted in the United States on Tuesday for unlawfully operating as a foreign agent. He was found guilty of secretly gathering intelligence on pro-democracy activists who supported democratic reforms in China and relaying this information to China’s main intelligence agency, the Ministry of State Security (MSS).

Wang, who presented himself as a critic of the Chinese government to establish trust, covertly collected data on dissidents through a pro-democracy organization he co-founded, according to a federal jury in New York. His network reportedly included Hong Kong pro-democracy activists, advocates for Taiwan’s independence, as well as Uyghur and Tibetan activist groups. His sentencing is scheduled for January 9, 2025, and he faces up to 25 years in prison.

Wang pleaded not guilty. His lawyers portrayed him as someone who was transparent with U.S. authorities about actions he believed to be harmless. They also contested the claim that his communications were genuinely directed or controlled by Chinese officials.

According to the indictment, Wang composed emails styled as “diaries,” which detailed conversations, meetings, and plans of various critics of the Chinese government. To avoid creating a digital trail, he saved these emails as drafts rather than sending them, allowing Chinese intelligence officials to access and read them using a shared password. These drafts included information about events commemorating the infamous 1989 crackdown on Tiananmen Square as well as plans for protests during Chinese President Xi Jinping’s visits to the U.S. Additionally, Wang sent separate encrypted messages that provided details of upcoming pro-democracy events and meetings with prominent Hong Kong dissidents.

Wang was arrested in March 2022. He had moved to New York in 1994 to teach, following his tenure at a Chinese university, and later became a naturalised U.S. citizen. He co-founded the Queens-based Hu Yaobang and Zhao Ziyang Memorial Foundation, named after two Chinese Communist Party leaders who were supportive of reform efforts in the 1980s. Between 2017 and 2021, during a series of FBI interviews, Wang initially denied having any contacts with the Ministry of State Security (MSS). However, FBI agents testified that he later admitted on videotape that the intelligence agency had asked him to collect information on democracy advocates, a task he sometimes carried out.

Liu Pengyu, a spokesperson for the Chinese embassy, stated on Tuesday that he was not familiar with the details of the Wang case. However, he emphasised that China strongly opposes what he described as the United States’ “slander,” “political manipulation,” and “malicious fabrication” of the so-called “transnational repression” narrative, as well as its blatant prosecution of officials from relevant Chinese departments.