Yuanjun Tang Sentenced to Three Years' Probation in Manhattan Federal Court After Pleading Guilty to Acting as an Unregistered Agent of China
A federal court in Manhattan, New York City, sentenced Yuanjun Tang on November 12: Tang, 69, who lives in Flushing, Queens, had admitted acting as an unregistered agent of China, and Judge John G. Koeltl sentenced him to three years' probation, with no prison time. Tang is a naturalized U.S. citizen who had been an outspoken critic of the Chinese Communist Party for more than three decades.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Jane Chong had asked for a five-year prison sentence, the maximum Tang faced after pleading guilty in September 2025 to conspiring to act as an agent of the People's Republic of China without notifying the U.S. attorney general. The judge said claims by some individuals who believe they and their families were targeted for harm because of Tang's actions could not be proven.
Prosecutors said that from at least 2018 to 2023, at the direction of an officer of China's Ministry of State Security, Tang provided information on dozens of individuals to Chinese authorities and enabled a Chinese handler to join an online group chat titled “Friends of the Chinese Democracy Party” that he had begun with 140 Chinese-American individuals. He agreed to photograph and record local protests against China, including a 2023 event in Manhattan dedicated to victims of the Tiananmen Square massacre. In court papers, prosecutors said the FBI told Tang in June 2023 that his phone likely contained malware planted by China, and that he then confessed he had carried out tasks for the Ministry of State Security for years in return for about $4,200 a year.
Speaking through a Chinese interpreter, Tang told the judge he had betrayed his ideology to visit China and “see my parents again,” adding: “I deeply regret my actions. My actions have caused a certain harm to other people.” His defense attorney, Michael Bradley, said Tang was a democracy advocate, writer and activist who desperately wanted to return to China to visit his ailing parents and brother and made a connection with an individual who thought he could make it happen; the lawyer said Tang did not know the man was a spy until he actually got to China, where his mother and brother had already died. Four individuals who believe they were victimized spoke at the sentencing, and the prosecutor said they “can never stop looking over their shoulders” and that Tang's actions had a chilling effect on an entire community.
Tang participated in the 1989 student-led Tiananmen Square demonstrations and, according to reports at the time, was held in a Chinese prison for 12 years for his involvement. In 2002 he defected to Taiwan and then to the United States, where he was granted political asylum, and he became a naturalized U.S. citizen in July 2018. By then, prosecutors said, he was already providing information to the Ministry of State Security. His October 2024 arrest followed several investigations into what federal officials have called China's campaign of “transnational repression.”
Source: Associated Press
Published by GSM · USA (original Chinese edition)
Photo: 图：位于纽约曼哈顿的 Daniel Patrick Moynihan 美国联邦法院大楼，本案在此量刑（资料图）。Ken Lund 摄，CC BY-SA 2.0，经 Wikimedia Commons。 / Photo: The Daniel Patrick Moynihan United States Courthouse in Manhattan, New York, where the sentencing took place (file photo). Photo by Ken Lund, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
