![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/d5774ec480a629e01d714cf1a6711032.jpeg\")
<\/p>\nThe FBI says authorities have arrested a California woman and accused her of spying on a son of Taiwan’s president at the direction of Chinese officials.<\/p>\n
The FBI arrested Wanying Zhang, also known as Heather, at Los Angeles International Airport on Sunday, local time, before she was due to depart for China, the agency said in a statement.<\/p>\n
Authorities charged Ms Zhang, 34, of Irvine, California, with acting as an unregistered foreign agent.<\/p>\n
Ms Zhang surveilled one of the sons of Taiwanese President Lai Ching-te, the FBI said.<\/p>\n
The agency did not directly name Ms Zhang’s alleged target, but later shared a New York Post report identifying him as Lai Ting-yu, a US resident.<\/p>\n
Taiwan’s presidential office described Ms Zhang’s actions as a “typical case of transnational repression” and thanked the US government for protecting Taiwanese citizens.<\/p>\n
“Our country expresses the strongest condemnation of such barbaric conduct that disregards human rights and the sovereignty of nations,” spokesperson Karen Kuo said in a statement.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Wanying Zhang was arrested as she was departing for a flight to China. (X: Bill Essayli, First Assistant US Attorney for the Central District of California)<\/p>\n
China’s foreign ministry did not respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n
Mr Lai and his Democratic Progressive Party champion Taiwan’s separate identity from China, a position that frequently angers Beijing, which views the island as Chinese territory.<\/p>\n
Mr Lai says only the people of Taiwan can decide its future.<\/p>\n
The Justice Department said Ms Zhang travelled to Seattle in 2025 at the direction of Chinese officials and sent them photos, video and license-plate information about the Taiwanese president’s son and his family.<\/p>\n
Ms Zhang used tradecraft to avoid detection and did not notify Washington that she was acting for a foreign government, Bill Essayli, the first assistant US attorney for the Central District of California, said in a statement.<\/p>\n
It was not immediately clear whether Ms Zhang had a defence lawyer.<\/p>\n
She will appear in a Los Angeles federal court on Monday, Mr Essayli said.<\/p>\n
Washington does not have \u2060formal diplomatic ties with Taiwan, but the US is the island’s most important international backer and weapons supplier.<\/p>\n
Reuters<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The FBI says authorities have arrested a California woman and accused her of spying on a son of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":485635,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[7,9,8,3573,1055,189860,6283,7756,36783,43437,435],"class_list":["post-485634","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-california","tag-california","tag-california-headlines","tag-california-news","tag-china","tag-fbi","tag-lai-ching-te","tag-president","tag-son","tag-spying","tag-taiwan","tag-united-states"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/485634","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=485634"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/485634\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/485635"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=485634"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=485634"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=485634"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}