Chinese spy or counterrevolutionary? Foreign agent trial begins in New York
- Wang Shujun is accused of monitoring – at China’s direction – US-based activists opposed to Beijing’s Communist government
US prosecutors alleged a Chinese academic betrayed US-based dissidents to Beijing at the start of the 76-year-old’s trial on foreign agents charges on Monday, while defence lawyers said their client was trying to bring democracy to communist China.
Federal prosecutors in Brooklyn said Wang Shujun, a naturalised US citizen, exploited his leadership role in New York communities supporting democracy in China to collect information on dissidents, and shared it with four officials in China’s Ministry of State Security (MSS), an intelligence service.
“He portrayed himself as an academic, an activist, a pro-democracy advocate against the Chinese government,” prosecutor Ellen Sise told jurors in her opening statement. “In reality, the defendant Wang Shujun acted as an illegal agent of the Chinese government, spying on New Yorkers for years.”
Prosecutors say MSS officials directed Wang to target Hong Kong pro-democracy activists, advocates for Taiwanese independence campaigners and Uygur and Tibetan activists. They say Wang’s scheme ran from 2005 to 2022.
In his opening statement, defence lawyer Zachary Margulis-Ohnuma said Wang spoke to the intelligence officials about the pro-democracy movement in an effort to win their support and promote social change, and was not acting as their agent.