Source : INDIA TODAY NEWS
A California real estate agent was arrested at Los Angeles International Airport while leaving for China and accused of spying for the Chinese government on the family of Taiwan President Lai Ching-te, according to US federal officials. The FBI said Wanying Zhang, 34, who also went by Heather and lives in Irvine, carried out surveillance on the president’s son and his family and passed on photos, videos and vehicle licence plate details to Chinese officials.
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Zhang, a naturalised US citizen, was arrested on Sunday on charges of acting in the United States as an unregistered agent for China, First Assistant US Attorney Bill Essayli said. It was not immediately clear whether she had a lawyer to speak for her. She was due to appear in federal court in Los Angeles on Monday afternoon.
According to a federal criminal complaint, Zhang took photos and videos of her targets and sent licence plate information to Chinese officials. The FBI’s rapid response account on X said the target was the Taiwanese president’s son, though the criminal complaint itself does not name the person. Taiwan’s Presidential Office confirmed that relatives of President Lai were the targets, without specifying whether it was his son, and said, “this is a classic case of transnational repression.”
Taiwan condemned the alleged surveillance in strong terms. Presidential Office spokesperson Karen Kuo said in a statement, “Taiwan condemns in the strongest terms such barbaric acts – which disregard human rights and national sovereignty and aim to suppress, threaten, or even harm individuals advocating for freedom and democracy or their families – as such behavior should not be tolerated in the civilized world.” The Chinese Embassy in the US did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Monday, while China’s Foreign Ministry was closed for holidays.
The affidavit said that, at the direction of Chinese officials, Zhang and another person flew to Seattle on September 1, 2025, and conducted surveillance outside the target’s home. A home security camera near the house recorded the pair filming the target and the family from a vehicle, it said. Zhang then allegedly sent a Chinese official material linked to the surveillance, including photos, videos and licence plate information from the target’s vehicles. The FBI said Ting-Yu Lai, the president’s elder son, lives and works in the Seattle area as an engineer.
According to the affidavit, Zhang studied at the University of International Relations in Beijing, which it described as closely linked to China’s intelligence apparatus. It said she stayed in touch after graduating around 2014 with a classmate who later became a Chinese government official, and that he introduced her to another official. The affidavit said she was in contact with both in 2025.
The case is the latest in a series of US Justice Department prosecutions involving people accused of secretly advancing Beijing’s interests in the United States. Many of those cases, the department has said, involve efforts to find and harass pro-democracy activists living in the US and to influence American public opinion by building ties with political figures seen as having access to power. In May, Eileen Wang, the mayor of Arcadia in Southern California, agreed to plead guilty to acting as an illegal agent of the Chinese government and resigned from her post.
Taiwan and China split after a civil war in 1949, but Beijing claims the island as its territory. Lai, who was elected in 2024, has said that Taiwan and Beijing do not belong to each other and that the “People’s Republic of China has no right to represent Taiwan”. China has called him a separatist and a “destroyer of peace”. Since taking office, Lai has increased defence spending for Taiwan, including a pledge to raise it from 3 per cent to 5 per cent of GDP and backing a special budget for the construction of a T-Dome air defence system. The arrest of Zhang has now added to wider concerns in the US and Taiwan over alleged Chinese surveillance and pressure operations targeting people linked to the island’s leadership.
With PTI Inputs
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SOURCE :- TIMES OF INDIA
