US accuses mainland China of targeting Taiwan leader’s family in surveillance case

The United States has accused mainland China of hiring an American citizen of Chinese origin to surveil the family of Taiwanese leader William Lai Ching-te, days after President Xi Jinping’s state visit to Washington.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation on Sunday arrested 34-year-old Zhang Wanying at Los Angeles International Airport, alleging that she attempted to flee the country and charged her with acting as an unregistered agent for the Chinese government.

The FBI accused her of surveilling the Taiwanese leader’s son and his family in Seattle last year, filming their home and vehicles and sharing the footage with handlers in China.

“The Chinese government allegedly sent an operative to surveil the family of Taiwan’s President ON AMERICAN SOIL – photos, video, license plates – then she tried to hop a flight back to Shanghai. Wrong move,” FBI Director Kash Patel wrote on social media.

Zhang is scheduled to make her initial appearance in court on Monday at 1.30pm local time in the US District Court for the Central District of California in Los Angeles. She remains in custody, according to court records, and is represented by Chad J. Pennington, a deputy federal public defender.

China’s foreign ministry was quoted by Reuters as saying that it was “not familiar” with the situation, but had “consistently opposed the sensationalisation of so-called ‘Chinese ⁠spies’ to slander and smear China”.

The Chinese embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

In an affidavit filed with the US District Court in Orange County, the FBI did not identify the surveillance target, referring to him only as “a close relative of a Taiwanese government official”. The FBI later identified him on social media as Taiwanese leader Lai’s son, whose name is Ting-Yu Lai.

It alleged that Zhang, a resident of Irvine, California, travelled to Seattle in September last year with another person to conduct surveillance.

“She coordinated the trip with an associate and used tradecraft to avoid detection. She never notified the attorney general she was acting for a foreign government, a federal offence,” Bill Essayli, first assistant US attorney for the Central District of California, said on social media.

Lai’s office condemned what it called “barbaric acts” and said that “such behaviour should not be tolerated in the civilised world”.

Beijing sees Taiwan as part of China to be reunited by force if necessary. Most countries, including the US, do not recognise Taiwan as an independent state, but Washington is opposed to any attempt to take the self-governed island by force and is committed to supplying it with weapons.

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According to court documents, Zhang is facing charges under 18 USC section 951, a federal criminal law that forbids acting inside the United States as an undisclosed agent of a foreign government without giving prior notification to the US attorney general. A violation is a felony and usually carries a maximum penalty of up to 10 years in prison, a fine, or both.

A RedNote account believed to belong to Zhang and identified by the South China Morning Post appears to place her in Seattle in early September 2025, matching the timeline in the federal complaint.

The account, named “美美哒 Heather” – the complaint gives “Heather” as Zhang’s alias – posted on September 2, 2025, with a US location tag. The Chinese-language post reads: “Seattle airport must be the least efficient international airport in the US? Security line took an hour.” The complaint does not cite the post.

According to the federal criminal complaint and affidavit, Zhang stayed in touch for years with a former classmate in Beijing whom the FBI calls “PRC Official 1”.

The US authorities believe that when Zhang met Official 1 in China in January 2025, Official 1 directed her to obtain information about an Irvine address previously associated with a Taiwanese elected official.

“Based on my training and experience and conversations with others involved in the case, it is likely that PRC Official 1 tasked ZHANG, while ZHANG was visiting China, to obtain information about this address,” FBI agent Kevin Holt wrote in the affidavit. “I know that China’s Intelligence Services often tasks individuals visiting China while they are in China in order to evade US government scrutiny.”

In June 2025, Official 1 introduced Zhang to another purported Chinese government official, whom the FBI calls “PRC Official 2.” Official 2 later met Zhang in China, according to the complaint.

In a July 7 WeChat exchange, Official 2 referred to “our thing last time” and said he had intended to provide Zhang with “some assurance”.

On September 1, 2025, while outside the Seattle home, Zhang messaged Official 2, “Saw him. Young male,” and said she was video-recording, according to the document. She sent two licence plate numbers and a video of the house. A week later, she asked her travel companion to AirDrop her the Seattle pictures rather than send them over WeChat or text.

On September 11, Official 2 asked Zhang for pictures of the house. Zhang told him that her friend had deleted the pictures.

No message in the complaint explicitly tells Zhang to surveil the house. The FBI affiant interprets Official 2’s references to “our thing” and “assurance” as referring back to their June 2025 discussion of a “US house”.

Dennis Wilder, a former senior US intelligence official and a China expert, expects that the arrest will have limited influence on the ongoing US-China talks, as the two leaders are scheduled to meet twice more this year.

“This will have minimal impact on Sino-US relations,” he posted on X. “Spy games are an accepted superpower competition and have been forever.”

Who is Zhang Wanying?

According to a LinkedIn profile under her name, Zhang has been CEO of Alphabet Investment Management since 2017. Since 2016, she has also worked on the Douglas Elliman sales team for Metropolis, a luxury residential development by Greenland, a Chinese company and a Fortune Global 500 firm.

“I am the only native Chinese speaking in the team,” she wrote on LinkedIn, and described herself as “detail oriented, action oriented” with “excellent negotiation and relationship management” skills.

She earned a bachelor’s degree in public administration from the University of International Relations in Beijing in 2014 and a master’s degree in public administration from the University of Southern California in 2016, with a concentration in real estate.