The FBI has arrested a California real estate agent as she prepared to fly to China, accusing her of secretly working for Beijing to surveill the president of Taiwan's family in the US, federal officials said.
The case comes at a fraught moment for US-China relations, with Taiwan persistently at the centre of their military and diplomatic rivalry. Beijing claims the island as part of its own territory.
The FBI and federal prosecutors allege Wanying Zhang surveilled the house of the president's son and sent photos, videos and license plate information for his vehicles to a Chinese government official.
The federal criminal complaint did not name the alleged target, but the FBI’s rapid response account on the social media platform X said it was the president’s son. Ting-Yu Lai, the president’s elder son, lives and works in the Seattle area as an engineer.
Zhang, a 34-year-old real estate agent from Irvine who also went by the name Heather, was arrested Monday at Los Angeles International Airport and charged with working for China as an unregistered agent, First Assistant US Attorney Bill Essayli said. Zhang is a naturalised US citizen, said Shawn Lewis, a spokesperson for the US attorney’s office.
Zhang appeared in downtown Los Angeles federal court Tuesday for an initial hearing to confirm she understood her rights. She has not yet been formally indicted.
Judge Steve Kim told her she was not financially eligible for a public defender and would need to hire a private attorney as soon as possible. A hearing to determine bail or whether she would be detained was scheduled for Wednesday afternoon.
Her husband, Edric Ding, was at the courthouse but declined to comment.
California records show Zhang has been a licensed real estate agent since 2016. A Zillow page shows she has sold seven homes in the last year around Orange County.
Justice Department arresting alleged Chinese agents
The case is the latest in a series of Justice Department prosecutions aimed at rooting out alleged covert agents advancing Beijing’s interests on American soil.
Many of the cases have centred on what the Justice Department says is China’s aggressive effort to locate and harass pro-democracy activists living in the US and suppress their speech. The Justice Department also says Beijing is determined to sway American public opinion in its favour by cultivating relationships with political figures seen as having access to the levers of power.
The Chinese Embassy in the US did not immediately respond to a request for comment Tuesday and the Foreign Ministry in Beijing was closed for holidays.
Taiwan’s Presidential Office confirmed President Lai Ching-te’s relatives were the targets, without specifying if it was the president’s son, saying that “this is a classic case of transnational repression”.
"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 behaviour should not be tolerated in the civilised world," spokesperson Karen Kuo said in a statement.
Federal officials say surveillance occurred in September 2025
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, according to an affidavit with the criminal complaint. A home security camera near the target's home recorded the pair filming the target and their family from a vehicle, the affidavit said.
Zhang then allegedly sent a Chinese official information related to the surveillance, including photos, videos and license plate information from the target's vehicles. The affidavit said that photos like that and the location of close relatives of a high-ranking Taiwanese official could be useful to China if officials wished to "obtain leverage" over Taiwan's president "during any potential conflict".
According to the affidavit, Zhang attended the University of International Relations in Beijing, which the FBI agent writing the affidavit said is known to be affiliated closely with China’s intelligence apparatus. Many of the university’s graduates go on to work for ministries in Beijing, including the country’s intelligence apparatus.
The affidavit said Zhang and a classmate who became a Chinese government official had kept in contact since graduating around 2014, and he introduced her to another government official, and she was in contact with both in 2025.
In a post dated September 2, 2025, on the Chinese language app Xiaohongshu, Zhang complained about the long wait at the Seattle airport’s security check, wondering aloud if it was the "least efficient international airport" in the US.
She regularly shared photos of her travels around the world and dining at high-end restaurants.
Taiwan and China split after a civil war in 1949, but Beijing claims the island as part of its own territory. Lai, who was voted into office 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 considers him a separatist and has called him a "destroyer of peace".
While in office, Lai has stepped up spending on defence for Taiwan, notably pledging to increase defence spending from 3% to 5% of the GDP, and pushing through a special budget for the construction of a T-Dome air defence system.
In May, a Southern California mayor agreed to plead guilty to acting as an illegal agent for the Chinese government, and resigned from her city position. Eileen Wang, the mayor of Arcadia, had been charged with one count of acting in the US as an illegal agent of a foreign government.
She was accused of doing the bidding of Chinese officials, such as sharing articles favourable to Beijing, without prior notification to the US government as required by law.
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