New York — On Tuesday, a member of the Chinese dissident community in New York admitted to spying on his fellow active on behalf of the Chinese government.
Yuangon Tang, 68 years ago, was a long -standing critic of the Chinese Communist Party, where he joined monthly protests outside the consulate in Manhattan in the country and found a non -profit organization in support of democracy in Flaching, Queens, where he lived since 2002.
But while he was publicly calling against the government of his homeland, Tang was acting quietly based on orders from Beijing Intelligence Service to collect information about his Chinese American activists, according to the guilt that entered on Tuesday.
Federal prosecutors, who received charges against Tang last August, believe that before the tasks to obtain approval to visit family members in China. Email an inquiry has not been returned to his lawyer.
“Tang’s betrayal of the ideals of the United States to help the Chinese government suppress the supporters of democracy with the values ​​he claimed to promote,” the assistant director of the FBI said in a statement.
In the direction of a Chinese intelligence officer, Tang agreed to photograph and record local protests against China, including an event in 2023 in Manhattan devoted to the victims of the Tiananmen Square massacre, according to court documents.
Tang also provided the officer with a list of immigration lawyers who are working to help the defectors gain political asylum.
Tang himself got asylum in the United States in 2002, shortly after fleeing to Taiwan from a Chinese prison, where he was held for 12 years for his involvement in the protests led by students in Tiananmen Square, according to what he said. Reports at that time.
He then established a supportive group of democracy, its democratic headquarters, the Eastern China Democracy Party in the United States, which was expressed by the repeated general criticism of the Communist Party of China.
Tang’s arrest followed many prominent investigations into China’s attempts Silence and silence abroadPart of what Federal officials called “Patriotism”.
Last summer, a Chinese -Chinese researcher, Shujun Wang, who also co -founded a New York -based democracy group, was based in New York, convicted On charges of gathering information for the Chinese on democratic demonstrators in Hong Kong, Taiwanese independence supporters, Ouigor, Tabit and others activists.
In the previous year, the Ministry of Justice brought charges against two men who said they had Help establish a secret police The settlement focus in the Chinese neighborhood of Manhattan on behalf of the Chinese government.
In 2018, Talk to the New York Times About a book in which he presented, Tang gave a hint of disappointment about the role of the dissident abroad.
He said: “In the first year, you talk about courageous and bold words.” “In the second, nonsense. In the third, you have nothing to say at all.”
Tang is scheduled to be sentenced to January. He faces up to five years in prison if convicted.