A 67-year-old Chinese dissident, Yuanjun Tang, was arrested in New York on Wednesday and charged with working as an unregistered agent of the People’s Republic of China. Tang, a naturalized US citizen, had been a prominent figure in the Chinese dissident community in New York, having served as chairman of the China Democracy Party.
Tang’s life had been marked by his involvement in the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests, for which he was imprisoned in China. He later defected to Taiwan in 2002 and eventually settled in New York, where he became a vocal advocate for democracy in China.
However, according to federal prosecutors, Tang began working as an agent of China’s Ministry of State Security (MSS) around 2018, carrying out surveillance activities on behalf of the Chinese government until June 2023. Investigators alleged that Tang was recruited as a spy while trying to arrange visits to his family in China, and that he received payments from the Chinese government as compensation for his services.
The MSS allegedly directed Tang to gather intelligence on prominent US-based Chinese democracy activists and dissidents, using encrypted messaging, phone calls, and email to communicate with him. Tang is accused of infiltrating dissident chat groups, compiling dossiers on their members, and spying on events commemorating the Tiananmen Square massacre.
Tang’s arrest has sent shockwaves through the Chinese dissident community, with some members expressing surprise and others revealing that they had long been suspicious of his activities. Juntao Wang, founder of the China Democracy Party, described Tang’s arrest as “embarrassing” but also expressed sympathy for his struggles to see his family in China.
Tang faces up to 20 years in prison for his alleged crimes, which include working as an agent of a foreign government without notifying the US Attorney General and making false statements to the FBI. His case is not an isolated incident, as another democracy activist, Wang Shujun, was convicted of similar charges in New York earlier this year.
Some members of the Chinese dissident community have pointed out that Tang’s behavior had become increasingly suspicious in recent years, with one acquaintance recalling that he would often take photographs at dissident events rather than participating in them. Others have noted that the Chinese government’s tactics of using threats against family members to control dissidents overseas are all too common.
Tang’s case has also raised questions about the challenges faced by aging expatriates like himself, who may be vulnerable to coercion and manipulation by the Chinese government. As one Chinese-American lawyer noted, Tang had become increasingly critical of the student movement during the Tiananmen protests, leading to debates and confrontations with other dissidents.
