During President Donald Trump's trip to China this week, marked by fanfare and pleasantries, a stark contrast was on display in the United States where the Justice Department charged an American mayor for illegally acting as an agent of the Chinese Communist government. 

The incongruity between the flowery praise heaped on the American president in Beijing by Chairman Xi Jinping and the shocking tale of a U.S. official doing “the bidding” of a foreign government suggests underlying tensions in the U.S.-China relationship are not going away, despite promises to decrease trade barriers and achieve a peaceful coexistence. 

Steve Yates, a Senior Research Fellow at the Heritage Foundation and former deputy national security advisor to Vice President Mike Pence, told Just the News that the Chinese “have a perfect track record of saying polite things in person” but behaving differently in reality.  

“[T]hat really is the fundamental challenge,” Yates told the John Solomon Reports podcast.

Yates explained that personal diplomacy with China’s leader can only go so far, because ultimately – no matter how powerful Xi Jinping is – the Chinese Communist Party is still an all-encompassing system. Achieving real changes in Chinese behavior, from supporting Iran and Russia to opening up its closed economy to fair trade and investment, would require “a system change.” 

“I would just draw the following distinction: the Chinese Communist Party is a system. It's not an individual. And a lot of Americans, including the President, think of this as meeting with an individual and influencing that system through that individual. It's natural, it's the best we've got in terms of the opportunity, but those systems don't change strategy because of a meeting with an individual,” he said. 

“So we can get tactical purchases of aircraft, agricultural goods, maybe some moves on the margins of other critical issues, maybe exchange of prisoners. But, when it comes to opening up their market to social media and American tech in a responsible way. That's a system change,” Yates said. 

As Trump left China on Friday, the White House announced that the two leaders held productive talks on strengthening economic ties between the U.S. and China, with specific focus on opening more market access for American businesses, boosting Chinese investment in U.S. industries, and increasing China’s purchases of American farm products. Beijing also vowed to purchase 200 Boeing aircraft, though that was fewer than expected. 

This represents only moderate progress on solving the trade tensions between Washington and Beijing since President Trump significantly raised tariffs on the country last year aimed at rebalancing the trade relationship. 

“I don't know if that's a structural change, I suspect it is not,” author and China analyst Gordon Chang told the Just the News, No Noise TV show. 

“The Chinese are very good at making their purchases further their political goals, and when their goals change, so do their buying habits. But at least for the moment, you know, Boeing will sell a few more planes to China, and things will be a little bit better in the US economy for that,” he added. 

Chinese President Xi struck an optimistic tone during the talks, but warned the U.S. not to cause conflict by supporting Taiwan’s independence. Beijing has disputed the island democracy’s refusal to submit to the control of the Chinese Communist Party since the end of the Chinese civil war. 

“China always means what it says and matches its words with actions and results. If the two sides work in the same direction in the spirit of equality, respect and mutual benefit, we can surely find ways to address each other's concerns, Xi said,” Chinese state-owned media outlet Xihua reported. 

However, developments on the U.S. home front in the days leading up to President Trump’s China visit suggest that there will remain underlying tensions in the U.S.-China relationship.

Earlier this week, the mayor of Arcadia, California pleaded guilty to acting as an illegal agent for the People's Republic of China. The mayor, Eileen Wang, 58, was elected to the Arcadia City Council in November 2022, and the mayor is selected on a rotating basis. Wang was mayor from Feb. 3 until her resignation Monday. 

According to the Justice Department, from late 2020 through 2023, Wang worked at the direction and control of officials in the PRC promoting its interests. Among other things, Wang promoted propaganda in support of China, Just the News reported. 

Yaoning "Mike" Sun, 65, of Chino Hills, was also charged in the case. He is serving a four-year federal sentence after pleading guilty in 2025 to acting as an illegal agent of a foreign government. 

Investigators say Wang and Sun operated the U.S. News Center, a website that was presented as a news source for the local Chinese-American community. Officials of the PRC directed Wang and Sun on what content to host on the site. 

The same week, a New York man was convicted of illegally acting as a foreign agent by secretly running a Chinese police station in lower Manhattan to monitor regime dissidents. The police station was shut down by authorities in 2022.  

“Harry” Lu Jianwang was convicted after evidence showed his dealings with China’s Ministry of Public Security, which had instructed him to hang a banner inside a glass building that declared it was a “Police Overseas Service Station” for China’s Fujian province.