Who is Yuanjun Tang? Chinese dissident who admitted to spying for Beijing avoids prison time

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Yuanjun Tang participated in the 1989 Tiananmen Square demonstrations calling for democracy

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A member of New York’s Chinese dissident community who admitted spying for five years on his fellow activists on behalf of the Chinese government avoided prison time at his sentencing Thursday in Manhattan federal court.

Yuanjun Tang, 69, an outspoken critic of the Chinese Communist Party for over three decades, was sentenced to three years’ probation by Judge John G. Koeltl. The judge said claims by some individuals who believe they and their families were targeted for harm because of Tang’s actions could not be proven.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Jane Chong had asked the judge to impose a five-year prison sentence, the maximum Tang could face after pleading guilty in September 2025 to a charge that he failed to register as an agent of the People’s Republic of China with the U.S. attorney general’s office.

Defense attorney Michael Bradley said Tang was a democracy advocate, writer and activist who desperately wanted to return to China to visit his ailing parents and brother and made a connection with an individual who thought he could make it happen.

The lawyer said Tang didn’t know the man was a spy until he actually got to China, where, as it turned out, his mother and brother had already died.

Speaking through a Chinese interpreter, Tang told the judge that he betrayed his ideology to visit China and “see my parents again.”

“I deeply regret my actions,” he said. “My actions have caused a certain harm to other people.”

Tang’s October 2024 arrest followed several high-profile investigations into China’s attempts to harass and silence dissidents abroad, part of what federal officials have called a campaign of “transnational repression.”

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