A New York resident who participated in China’s 1989 democratic movement was charged Wednesday with acting as an unauthorized agent for the Chinese government in the United States, the Justice Department announced.
Tang Yuanjun, 67, was awarded political asylum by the US after swimming to a Taiwanese-controlled island over two decades ago.
He was charged on Wednesday with operating as an agent for the People’s Republic of China in the United States between 2018 and 2023, according to a Justice Department statement.
Tang accomplished “tasks at the direction of the PRC’s Ministry of State Security (MSS), which is the PRC’s principal civilian intelligence agency,” according to the department.
Tang sent MSS authorities information about “individuals and groups viewed by the PRC as potentially adverse” to its objectives, such as “prominent US-based Chinese democracy activists and dissidents”.
He is also accused of lying to the FBI by claiming he no longer had access to an email account used to communicate with his MSS handler.
He was arrested on Wednesday and was set to appear before a district judge.
When asked about the matter by AFP on Thursday, Beijing’s foreign ministry said it was “not familiar with the specifics you have raised”.
Tang, a native of China’s northeastern Jilin province, had been sentenced to 20 years in prison for his involvement in the 1989 democratic movement that culminated in the fatal Tiananmen Square crackdown in Beijing.
He was released after serving eight years.
Tang continued to advocate for democracy in China and was regularly jailed, questioned, and tormented by officials before fleeing to Taiwan, according to a Taipei-based rights organization that assisted with his asylum application in 2002.