Former democracy activist accused of spying for China by the US

According to the justice department, a citizen of New York who participated in the 1989 Chinese democracy movement was accused on Wednesday of acting as an unregistered agent of the Chinese government in the country.

Before receiving political refuge from the US more than 20 years ago, Tang Yuanjun, now 67, swam to an island under Taiwanese authority.

According to a statement from the Justice Department, he was charged on Wednesday with serving as an agent of the People’s Republic of China in the United States between 2018 and 2023.

According to the department, Tang finished “tasks at the direction of the PRC’s Ministry of State Security (MSS), which is the PRC’s primary civilian intelligence agency.”

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,” was given to MSS officers by Tang.

In addition, he is charged with lying to the FBI over his assertion that he was unable to access the email address he was using to correspond with his MSS handler.

He was supposed to appear before a district judge on Wednesday, when he was arrested.

Beijing’s foreign ministry responded to an AFP inquiry on the matter on Thursday by saying it was “not familiar with the specifics you have raised.”

Tang, a native of the northeastern Chinese province of Jilin, was given a 20-year term for his involvement in the 1989 democratic movement that led to the tragic crackdown in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square.

After serving eight years, he was freed.

According to a Taipei-based rights organization that assisted Tang with his asylum application in 2002, Tang continued to actively promote democracy in China and was frequently arrested, interrogated, and tormented by the government before escaping to Taiwan.