Federal prosecutors announced Monday that Eileen Wang, 58, of Arcadia, Calif., has been charged with one count of acting in the U.S. as an illegal agent of a foreign government and is “expected to plead guilty in the coming weeks.” The charge is punishable with up to 10 years in prison. 

“Mayor Wang admitted to acting as a foreign agent from at least 2020 through 2022 – promoting PRC propaganda in the U.S. and acting at PRC’s direction to promote their interests,” FBI Director Kash Patel posted on X. “FBI and our federal partners continue to move aggressively to root out this kind of influence in American institutions all over the country.”

Wang was elected in November 2022 to the five-member Arcadia City Council, where the mayor is selected on a rotating basis. City Manager Dominic Lazzaretto said in a statement Monday that Wang, who became mayor in February, has resigned from the council.

“The allegations at the center of this case, that a foreign government sought to exert influence over a local elected official, are deeply troubling,” Lazzaretto said, though he clarified that the charge against Wang is for actions that ended after her swearing-in, and that, after an internal review, the council can confirm that no Arcadia City finances, staff, or decision-making processes were involved. 

In a statement to the Courthouse News Service, Wang’s attorney Brian Sun said that the California politician “apologizes and is sorry for the mistakes she has made in her personal life,” adding: “Her love and devotion for the Arcadia community have not changed and did not waver.”

The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has a track record of attempting to influence other countries’ affairs to advance its interests. It has meddled in elections, targeted overseas Chinese dissidents, and conducted information and propaganda campaigns, according to government and journalistic reports.

“Individuals in our country who covertly do the bidding of foreign governments undermine our democracy,” said First Assistant U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli in the Monday announcement, adding that the plea agreement Wang has entered into is “the latest success in our determination to defend the homeland against China’s efforts to corrupt our institutions.” 

Here’s what to know.

Who is Eileen Wang?

Eileen Wang is a Chinese immigrant. According to a 2024 report in the Los Angeles Times, Wang said she moved to Southern California from China three decades ago. Wang told the paper that her mother was a Chinese medicine and acupuncture doctor, while her father was a physician in Sichuan province before working at the University of Southern California.

The LA Times report added that Wang, a mother of two, had been based in Arcadia for about two decades, and was mainly known for running an after-school program in the city called Little Stanford Academy before entering politics. About 59% of Arcadia’s 54,000 population, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, is Asian, while over 42% is ethnically Chinese.

Wang is the former fiancée of Yaoning “Mike” Sun, who was sentenced to four years in federal prison earlier this year for similarly acting as a covert agent for China, including, according to the U.S. Justice Department at the time, while he was serving as a campaign adviser for an unnamed candidate “who was elected to the city council of a Southern California city.” Sun was Wang’s former campaign adviser.

Wang’s case

The charge against Wang was filed on April 1, but court filings, including the plea agreement Wang entered into, were unsealed on Monday. 

According to the unsealed plea agreement, from late 2020 through at least 2022, Wang “coordinated with U.S.-based individuals” for the purpose of “promoting pro-PRC propaganda in the United States.” 

Wang is alleged to have worked with Sun, her then-fiancé, to run a website called U.S. News Center that purported to be a news source for Chinese-Americans. According to the agreement, the two “received and executed directives” from Chinese government officials to post and circulate pro-PRC content on the site. 

The document cites examples. In June 2021, after a Chinese government official contacted Wang and other individuals via messaging platform WeChat about a pre-written essay on Xinjiang, she posted it on her site and received a “thank you” from the official. In August, Wang addressed a Chinese official’s request for edits to the article; then she sent the official a screenshot of the number of views that article had amassed. After the official replied, “Great!” Wang allegedly responded: “Thank you leader.”

In November 2021, Wang communicated with John Chen, who was sentenced in November 2024 to 20 months in federal prison for acting as an illegal agent of the Chinese government in the U.S. and bribing a tax authority agent. Chen, according to court documents, previously attended high-level CCP functions, and had personally met Chinese President Xi Jinping. The plea agreement said that Wang asked Chen to share an article from her website, saying, “This is what the Ministry of Foreign Affairs wants to send.”

Wang admitted in the plea agreement that she did not notify the Attorney General that she was acting in the U.S. as an agent of China, as is required by law, and that she did not disclose that content posted on her website were based on orders from Chinese authorities.

Chinese espionage

The FBI’s website says that China employs “tactics that seek to influence lawmakers and public opinion to achieve policies that are more favorable” to them and called counterintelligence and economic espionage efforts from the Chinese government and the CCP a “grave threat to the economic well-being and democratic values of the United States.”

In 2025, the House Committee on Homeland Security issued a report that found more than 60 cases of Chinese espionage or repression in the U.S. since 2021, including sending sensitive U.S. military information to the Chinese government, stealing trade secrets, and carrying out transnational repression schemes including setting up undercover Chinese police stations–which it has reportedly done worldwide.

In April, the White House also accused China of stealing on an “industrial scale” the intellectual property of U.S. artificial ​intelligence labs, as both countries race to become global leaders of AI. Sen. Chuck Grassley (R, Iowa) said in a statement last month that China steals between $400 billion and $600 billion of IP yearly, or about $5,000 per taxpayer.

China has routinely refuted interference, espionage, and theft accusations. It also denied that it had overseas police stations that collect information on and harass Chinese dissidents living in the U.S. and elsewhere, claiming instead that it had service centers for citizens abroad.

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The demands of the Iran war also caused President Donald Trump to delay by several weeks his highly anticipated trip to China, deepening worries that the U.S. is once again getting distracted at the cost of its strategic interests in Asia, where Beijing seeks to unseat the U.S. as the regional leader.

Those skeptical of the U.S. involvement in the Middle East say the war is preventing Trump from adequately preparing for his summit with Chinese leader Xi Jinping next month, when economic interests are on the line, and they warn that a failure to focus on Asia and maintain strong deterrence could lead to greater instability, if China should believe the time is ripe to seize the self-governed island of Taiwan.

“This is precisely the wrong time for the United States to turn away and be sucked into another intractable Middle East conflict,” said Danny Russel, a distinguished fellow at the Asia Society Policy Institute. “Rebalancing to Asia is highly relevant to America’s national interests, but it has been undercut by many bad decisions.”

Others defend the president’s approach, arguing that the forceful steps he is taking elsewhere, including in Venezuela and Iran, serve to counter China globally.

“Beijing is the chief sponsor for the adversaries that President Trump is dealing with sequentially, and it’s wise to do this sequentially,” Matt Pottinger, who served as a deputy national security adviser in the first Trump administration, said in a recent podcast.

NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte also said conflicts may not be confined to a single theater, suggesting that China could call upon its “junior partners” elsewhere to divert U.S. attention if it should move against Taiwan.

“Most likely it will not be limited, something in the Indo-Pacific to the Indo-Pacific,” Rutte said, speaking Thursday at the Ronald Reagan Institute in Washington. “It will be a multi-theater issue.”

Repercussions in Asia of the Iran war

Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, recently led a bipartisan group of senators to Taiwan, Japan and South Korea, where they heard concerns about the impact of the war on energy costs and about the departure of U.S. military assets, including missile defense systems from South Korea and a rapid-response Marine unit from Japan.

She sought to reassure them of the U.S. commitment to deterring conflicts in Asia and shoring up regional stability.

“Failure is not an option,” Shaheen told The Associated Press after returning from Asia. “We know China has already said they intend to take Taiwan by force if they need to, and they’re on an expedited time schedule. And we also know that what happened in Europe, in the war in Ukraine, in the Middle East is affecting those calculations.”

Kurt Campbell, who served as deputy secretary of state in the Biden administration, said he’s worried that the military capabilities that the U.S. had patiently accumulated in the Indo-Pacific region might not return in full even after the Iran war ends.

The longer the conflict goes on, the more it will pull resources and focus away from Asia, said Zack Cooper, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute who studies the U.S. strategy in Asia. He added that future arms sales to the region also will be negatively affected.

“The United States has expended substantial numbers of munitions in the Middle East and will have to keep an increased force presence there, some of which has been redirected from Asia,” Cooper said. “Meanwhile, Xi Jinping’s wisdom in preparing a ‘war time’ economy by stockpiling and adding alternate energy sources has shown itself to be beneficial.”

Shaheen said the U.S. defense industry will struggle to meet the demand to replenish the weapons stockpile. “We’re working on a number of strategies to improve that, but at this point, timelines for weapons delivery are slipping,” she said.

The senator from New Hampshire said she’s encouraged that Taiwan, Japan and South Korea are stepping up their own defense.

After 15 years and 3 presidents, pivot to Asia remains elusive

Obama’s strategic rebalance to Asia reflected his understanding that the U.S. must be a player in the Pacific to harness the region’s growth and ensure continued U.S. leadership in the face of China’s rising influence.

“After a decade in which we fought two wars that cost us dearly, in blood and treasure, the United States is turning our attention to the vast potential of the Asia-Pacific region,” Obama said in a speech to the Australian Parliament. “So make no mistake, the tide of war is receding, and America is looking ahead to the future that we must build.”

But the strategy was set back when a proposed trade agreement known as the Trans-Pacific Partnership with key U.S. regional partners failed to get through the U.S. Senate. After Trump first took office in 2017, he withdrew the U.S. from the partnership and launched a tariff war with China.

His Democratic successor, Joe Biden, kept Trump’s tariffs on China and tightened export controls on advanced technology, while strengthening regional alliances to counter China.

Middle East again grabs US attention

By the time Trump rolled out his national security strategy in late 2025, the U.S. strategy in Asia had been narrowed to military deterrence in the Taiwan Strait and the First Island Chain, a string of U.S.-aligned islands off China’s coast that restrict its access to the Western Pacific.

The national security document says it’s in the economic interest of the U.S. to secure access to advanced chips, which are sourced primarily from Taiwan and are needed to power everything from computers to missiles, and to protect shipping lanes in the South China Sea.

“Hence deterring a conflict over Taiwan, ideally by preserving military overmatch, is a priority,” the document says. “We will build a military capable of denying aggression anywhere in the First Island Chain.”

The Middle East, it says, should be getting less attention: “As this administration rescinds or eases restrictive energy policies and American energy production ramps up, America’s historic reason for focusing on the Middle East will recede.”

Then came the Iran war.

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“Donald Trump’s tariffs do not represent all Americans, particularly those that I represent here in the fifth-largest economy in the world, the state of California,” the governor said in a video posted to social media. “I remind all our international trading partners, California is a stable trading partner, and we hope you consider that as it relates to California-made products.”

Newsom has directed the state to pursue international trade relationships outside of the federal government. Additionally, the governor is calling on foreign governments to exempt California-made products from retaliatory tariffs the rest of the country may face as a result of Trump’s tariffs.

Trump’s plan imposes a 10 percent tariff for every nation and even higher rates for countries the president says have unfair trade relationships with the U.S.

This week, Trump raised tariffs against China to 104 percet after the world’s second-largest economy retaliated with its own set of tariffs on U.S. products. Beijing responded by announcing an 84 percent a levy on U.S. goods. The European Union favors a 25 percent tariff applied to a range of U.S. goods.

So far, no major trading partner has announced plans to spare California fromthe crossfire.

The Golden State boasts significant economic clout, as it is home to the largest agricultural production in the U.S. and some of America’s largest ports. It hosts the most Fortune 500 companies in the world and is home to over 36,000 manufacturers, employing 1.1 million people.

“It’s our workers, families, and farmers who stand to lose the most from this Trump tax hike and trade war,” Newsom wrote in his statement.

Newsom did not provide details as to how California’s independent trade deals would be pursued, but the plan is likely to further sour relations with the Trump administration.

“Gavin Newsom should focus on out-of-control homelessness, crime, regulations, and unaffordability in California instead of trying his hand at international dealmaking,” White House spokesperson Kush Desai told Politico.

However, the state wields significant leverage due to its economic stature — and this wouldn’t be the first time California used its standing to depart from Washington on international trade.

Under former Gov. Jerry Brown, California independently negotiated climate pacts with foreign entities, such as the agreement with China to cooperate on reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

California holds power because it has major ties and relies heavily on its main foreign trade partners, Mexico, Canada and China. Trump’s tariffs could become a huge disruption to supply chains along the California-Baja region.

“If these goods are taxed each time they cross the border, the price of the final product will rise and ultimately be passed on to California consumers. This will have far-reaching impacts, affecting everything from semiconductors to aerospace and automotive products,” Newsom’s office said.

The tariffs announced by Trump are predicted to result in a 2.3 percent increase in inflation this year, Newsom’s office said, citing a Yale Budget Lab analysis. That includes a 2.8 percent increase in food prices and an 8.4 percent increase in automotive prices.

It could levy $3,800 on the average household, according to the analysis.

The governor’s office warned that steep retaliatory tariffs on imported construction materials could hinder Los Angeles’ ability to rebuild after January wildfires that leveled entire neighborhoods and destroyed countless homes.

“The trade war that Donald Trump has launched is going to be felt in pretty profound ways to real people, including those who voted for Donald Trump and are now being betrayed by this very administration,” a political funding email from Newsom’s office reads.

Newsom noted that California is the nation’s largest importer and second-largest exporter, fueling a $3.9 trillion gross domestic product. He called that figure “key” to the country’s economic growth, noting that the state contributes more than $83 billion to the federal government annually.

Just how or whether California can convince international trade partners to spare the state from retaliatory tariffs remains to be seen. According to NBC7, the Governor’s Office of Business and Economic Development said the plan involved sensitive negotiations that would be detailed in the coming weeks.

Vinod Aggarwal, a professor of international political economy at UC Berkeley, told SFGATE that Newsom’s attempt to spare California could possibly work, but it isn’t likely.

“Tariffs are tariffs,” Aggarwal told the newspaper. “If he can convince countries to not tax California imports, more power to him, but I don’t believe that’s going to happen.”

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Liming Li, 66, of Rancho Cucamonga, pleaded guilty on Thursday to one count of possession of trade secrets, according to the U.S. Department of Justice.

Li was arrested in May 2023 after his flight from Taiwan landed at Ontario International Airport.

From 1996 to 2013, Li worked as a senior software engineer, then as a program manager at an American company based in Southern California that “specialized in precision measuring instruments and metrological technology and equipment,” prosecutors say. Identified only as “U.S. Company #1,” it sold products such as micrometers, calipers, coordinate measuring machines and optical measurement systems.

In July 2013, Li signed an agreement with the company which required him to turn over the company’s proprietary information and barred him from sharing it with any other companies. He had worked with that information in the form of source code for one of the company’s software programs.

As part of his guilty plea, Li admitted that he “occasionally” downloaded that information onto his personal devices and failed to turn it over even after he stopped working at U.S. Company #1. From 2013 to 2018, Li worked at a subsidiary of U.S. Company #1.

He was terminated from that company in 2018 and failed to turn over all of the proprietary information, despite his signed agreement.

He then operated a consulting company named JSL Innovations Inc. starting in February 2018. In addition to that job, he started working for Suzhou Universal Group Technology Co. Ltd. in March 2020.

While working for that China-based chain-and-bearing manufacturer, Li used the information stolen from U.S. Company #1 for his own financial benefit, he admitted in the plea agreement. He also admitted that the use of that information would “injure” U.S. Company #1’s interests.

Li is scheduled to be sentenced on May 8. He could face a maximum of 10 years in prison.

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The sternly worded final communiqué, approved by the 32 NATO members at their summit in Washington, makes clear that China is becoming a focus of the military alliance. The European and North American members and their partners in the Indo-Pacific increasingly see shared security concerns coming from Russia and its Asian supporters, especially China.

Beijing insists that it does not provide military aid to Russia but has maintained strong trade ties with its northern neighbor throughout the conflict. It also accuses NATO of overreaching and inciting confrontation in the Indo-Pacific region.

In the communiqué, NATO member countries said China has become a war enabler through its “no-limits partnership” with Russia and its large-scale support for Russia’s defense industrial base.

“This increases the threat Russia poses to its neighbors and to Euro-Atlantic security. We call on the PRC, as a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council with a particular responsibility to uphold the purposes and principles of the U.N. Charter, to cease all material and political support to Russia’s war effort,” read the communiqué, which referred to China by the abbreviation of its official name, the People’s Republic of China.

“The PRC cannot enable the largest war in Europe in recent history without this negatively impacting its interests and reputation,” the document says.

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said China provides equipment, microelectronics and tools that are “enabling Russia to build the missiles, to build the bombs, to build the aircraft, to build the weapons they use to attack Ukraine.”

He said it was the first time all NATO allies have stated this so clearly in an agreed document.

The Chinese embassy in Washington on Wednesday said China is neither a creator of nor a party to the Ukraine crisis. “China does not provide weapons to the parties to the conflict and strictly controls the export of dual-use articles, which is widely applauded by the international community,” said Liu Pengyu, the embassy spokesman.

He said China’s normal trade with Russia is “done aboveboard” and “beyond reproach.”

Danny Russel, a former assistant secretary of state for Asia, called the new wording by NATO “an extraordinary step,” particularly because it was coupled with the warning that Beijing continues to pose “systemic challenges” to European interests and security.

“It is a mark of how badly Beijing’s attempt to straddle Russia and Western Europe has failed and how hollow its claim of neutrality rings,” said Russel, who is vice president for international security and diplomacy at the Asia Society Policy Institute. “China’s attempts at divide-and-conquer have instead produced remarkable solidarity between key nations of the Euro-Atlantic and the Asia-Pacific regions.”

Max Bergmann, director of the Europe, Russia, and Eurasia Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said the statement is “highly significant” because it signals to China that Europe, just like the U.S., also condemns support to Russia.

“The U.S. believes that Europe has influence in Beijing, and that while China will not pay any attention to U.S. condemnation, they will pay attention to European condemnation because just because Europe trades with China, China also trades with Europe,” Bergmann said.

In this year’s final declaration, NATO member countries reiterated their concerns that China poses “systemic challenges” to Euro-Atlantic security. It was first raised in 2021.

The alliance said China has been behind sustained, malicious cyber and hybrid activities, including disinformation and expressed concerns over China’s space capabilities and activities. It also raised alarms that China is rapidly expanding and diversifying its nuclear arsenal with more warheads and a larger number of sophisticated delivery systems.

Liu, the Chinese embassy spokesman, said China handles such issues “in a responsible manner with transparent policies.”

“Hyping up the so-called ‘China threat’ is completely futile,” Liu said, adding Beijing firmly opposes NATO’s use of regional hotspot issues to smear China and incite a new Cold War.

In Washington, where leaders of NATO nations are convening this week to mark the coalition’s 75th anniversary, President Joe Biden said the alliance must not fall behind Russia, which is ramping up weapon production with the help of China, North Korea and Iran.

Australia, New Zealand, Japan and South Korea have sent their leaders or deputies to the NATO summit in Washington this week. They are partners, not members, of the alliance.

In the final declaration, NATO members affirmed the importance of the Indo-Pacific partners to the alliance and said they were “strengthening dialogue to tackle cross-regional challenges.”

NATO and the Indo-Pacific partners plan to launch four projects to support Ukraine, bolster cooperation on cyber defense, counter disinformation and work on artificial intelligence. The NATO members said these projects would “enhance our ability to work together on shared security interests.”

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BEIJING (AP) — As the U.S. presidential campaign moves closer to a Donald Trump-Joe Biden rematch, China is watching uneasily.

First, there are concerns about the campaign itself, where candidates are likely to talk tough on China. That could threaten the fragile improvements in U.S.-China relations seen in recent months.

Then there’s the outcome of the November vote. Neither candidate is particularly appealing to Beijing. While Biden has looked for areas of cooperation with China, Beijing is concerned about his efforts to unite allies in the Indo-Pacific in a coalition against China. It’s also nervous about his approach to Taiwan after he has repeatedly said he would have U.S. troops defend it in a conflict with China.

Trump, with his isolationist approach to foreign policy, might be more hesitant to defend Taiwan. But nothing can be ruled out given his unpredictability and his tough rhetoric on China, which he blames for the COVID-19 outbreak that dogged the end of his term. He also could deepen a trade war that hasn’t eased since his presidency.

“For China, no matter who won the U.S. presidential election, they would be two ‘bowls of poison’,” said Zhao Minghao, a professor of international relations at Fudan University in Shanghai.

Even with the slight improvement in relations, tensions remain high, particularly over Taiwan. The question of who is in the White House could have enormous consequences not only for U.S.-China relations but for peace in the Asia-Pacific region.

Zhao’s views are echoed by a number of analysts in both countries, who suggest Beijing may find Biden the lesser of two evils for his steadiness over Trump’s unpredictability but also point out that the Chinese government agonizes over Biden’s success in building partnerships to counter China.

“No matter who takes office, it will not change the overall direction of America’s strategic competition with China,” said Sun Chenghao, a fellow at the Center for International Security and Strategy at Tsinghua University. “China doesn’t have any preference for who will win the presidential election because China has experience dealing with either of them for four years.”

In China’s social media, many commentators appear to be favoring Trump, whom they see not only as a businessman up for a deal but also a disruptive force that undermines American democracy and U.S. global leadership to the benefit of Beijing. Trump’s policies and remarks as president earned him the nickname of Chuan Jianguo, or “Trump, the (Chinese) nation builder,” an implication that he was helping Beijing.

Trump’s recent accusation that Taiwan took the chip-making industry from the U.S. has been seen as a sign that Trump, a businessman at heart, may not be willing to defend the self-governed island that Beijing considers to be Chinese territory.

Sun Yun, director of the China program at the Washington-based Stimson Center, cautioned against nationalistic sentiments in China that could be at odds with government officials and elites. “With Trump, there is no floor to U.S.-China relations, and Trump poses great risks and uncertainties, including the possibility of a military conflict,” Sun said, adding China in 2020 was convinced that Trump could attack Taiwan to win reelection.

“There might be some benefit associated with Trump’s potential to damage alliances and partnerships, shaking the world’s confidence in America’s leadership, but the benefit for China will not be able to offset the even more significant damage he would impose on the relationship with China,” she said.

Trump started off on the wrong foot with China when he took a congratulatory call on his 2016 election victory from the president of Taiwan, angering the government in Beijing, which opposes any official contact between Taiwan and foreign governments.

Relations appeared to get back on track in 2017, when Chinese President Xi Jinping visited Trump at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida in April and, six months later, hosted the U.S. president in Beijing with a dinner at the Forbidden City, the former imperial palace.

But in 2018, Trump started a trade war by imposing tariffs on Chinese imports. China retaliated with tariffs on U.S. goods, and the tariffs on both sides remain to this day.

The COVID-19 outbreak in China in 2020 pushed Trump’s relationship with the country to the point of no return. As the virus spread to the United States, he tried to deflect criticism of his handling of the pandemic by blaming China, drawing strong rebukes from Beijing.

When Biden and Trump squared off in 2020, U.S. intelligence agencies reported before the election that China viewed Trump as “unpredictable” and opposed his reelection. A subsequent assessment issued months after the election said that China ultimately had not interfered on either side and “considered but did not deploy” influence operations intended to affect the outcome.

Experts say the Chinese also are unlikely to interfere with the U.S. presidential election this year, partly because they are unwilling and partly because they have yet to build up the capabilities. If Beijing is to interfere, it is more likely to try to discredit U.S. democracy, amplify partisan discord, and undermine faith in the election process, they say.

Once elected, Biden kept his predecessor’s China policy. Not only did he keep the tariffs but Biden also limited access by Chinese companies to advanced technologies, sanctioned Chinese officials over human rights violations and expanded restrictions on China-bound U.S. monies.

Biden’s secretary of state, Antony Blinken, in 2022 called China the “most serious long-term challenge to the international order.”

Then in early 2023, tensions spiked again when the U.S. shot down a Chinese spy balloon. It took months of diplomacy to set up a meeting between Biden and Xi that resulted in some modest agreements and a vow to stabilize relations.

Miles Yu, director of the China center at the Hudson Institute, said the U.S. has come to a bipartisan agreement on China, with the two parties sharing “pretty much the same China policy.” In response, China’s ruling Communist Party has a new U.S. policy, he said.

“It doesn’t matter if it’s a black cat or a white cat, as long as it’s an American cat, it’s a bad cat,” Yu said, borrowing from the famous saying by China’s reformist politician Deng Xiaoping that encouraged market reforms regardless of ideology.

But several experts expressed a guarded preference for Biden because of his steadiness, which they say Beijing may appreciate in managing the already-fraught relations.

“Trump is by nature volatile and cruel and is a person hard to be familiar with,” said Shi Yinhong, international relations professor at Renmin University of China. While Beijing can expect its relationship with Washington to stay the course if Biden is reelected, it may not wish to deal with Trump’s hysteria toward China and possibly drastic changes if he returns to the White House, Shi said.

Wang Yiwei, director of the Institute of International Affairs at Renmin University of China, said Beijing is more worried about Trump’s hostility toward globalization than Biden’s worldwide efforts to build alliances. “We don’t expect any one of them would be better for China, but the key (for China) is to continue its opening and reforms, and high-quality development,” Wang said.

But Shi Sushi, a veteran commentator in Beijing, said it is easier for China to handle Trump, who just wants to cut a deal, than Biden, who has a values-based approach to governing.

“Biden’s toughness is something few Chinese understand,” Shi said. “He is an establishment politician. He is a defender of American values. He is engaged in ‘friends-circle diplomacy’ to form a circle of friends that integrates the power of the West to (counter) China. From this point of view, I can bluntly say that Biden is more difficult to deal with.”

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TAIPEI, Taiwan (AP) — Taiwan’s Defense Ministry said that China sent four balloons over the island, three of which passed near to a key air force base.

The reported incursions on Tuesday come as China has been upping its threat to use force to annex the self-governing republic.

Taiwan is holding elections for its president and legislature on Jan. 13, and China has used its military, diplomatic and economic power to influence voters to back candidates favoring unification between the sides. Despite that, the pro-independence Democratic Progressive Party is leading in most polls, reaffirming the electorate’s backing for the status of de-facto independence from mainland China.

China regularly sends navy ships and warplanes to waters and airspace close to Taiwan, and its use of balloons to collect intelligence could be a new stage in its campaign of intimidation against the island.

The Defense Ministry said three of the balloons passed from east to west, close to the Ching-Chuan-Kang air base, home to much of the Taiwanese air wings dedicated to defending the island against China’s military threat. The fourth passed north of the port of Keelung, which services Taiwan’s crucial trade relations with Japan, a treaty partner with the U.S.

A Chinese balloon shot down by the U.S. after transferring North America last February was equipped to detect and collect intelligence signals as part of a huge, military-linked aerial surveillance program that targeted more than 40 countries, the Biden administration said, citing imagery from American U-2 spy planes.

A fleet of balloons operates under the direction of the People’s Liberation Army, the military wing of China’s ruling Communist Party, and is used specifically for spying, outfitted with high-tech equipment designed to gather sensitive information from targets across the globe, the U.S. said. Similar balloons have sailed over five continents, it said.

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WASHINGTON (AP) — Public opinions in 24 countries — mostly rich nations — have grown more favorable of the United States than of China, according to the latest survey by the Washington-based Pew Research Center.

The gap in favorability of the world’s two largest economies widened after views of the U.S. rebounded since President Joe Biden took office in 2021, the report found. Favorable views of both countries fell in 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic began, but the ratings for China remained low during the latest survey, the Pew center said, “leading to some of the largest gaps in these views we have seen in our polling.”

The report, released Monday, comes as the two countries are intensely competing for global influence. President Xi Jinping wants China to be respected and trusted around the world, while Biden has made it a priority to mend relationships with U.S. allies.

“This year, overall views of the United States are much more positive than views of China in most places surveyed,” the report said. “But this has not always been the case in our nearly two decades of favorability polling, and views of the countries have fluctuated alongside views of their leaders.”

The 2019 survey recorded a median of 55% across 22 countries showing favorable views of the U.S., compared to a median of 39% of China.

In 2020, when Pew conducted surveys in a much smaller set of countries because of the pandemic, medians of 38% and 25% had favorable views of the U.S. and China, respectively. Of the same countries in 2023, medians of 58% and 21% had positive views of the U.S. and China, respectively. Medians are only of the 10 countries surveyed in both years, exclusive of the U.S. and Australia, Pew’s research analysts said.

In the latest survey, the gaps were most significant in Poland, Japan and South Korea, where more than 70% of the respondents rated the U.S. positively, compared with fewer than 30% who viewed China favorably, said Pew, which conducted nationally representative surveys in 24 countries in 2023.

Japan and South Korea, neighbors of China, have had a historically tense relationship with each other. In a diplomatic breakthrough, Biden held a trilateral summit with Japan’s prime minister and South Korea’s president at Camp David in August, hailed by supporters as forging a strong partnership countering China’s influence in the Indo-Pacific region.

The differences in favorable public opinions of the U.S. and China narrowed in middle-income countries such as Indonesia, South Africa and Mexico, and China overtook the U.S. in favorability in Nigeria, where both countries were highly favored, the report said.

Middle-income countries accounted for about one third of the countries surveyed by Pew, and no low-income country was included in the latest study.

The center said it was unable to conduct in-person surveys in less developed countries during the pandemic but planned to gauge public opinions in those countries when travel becomes easier. “In the months ahead, we intend to continue expanding our country coverage to a more economically and geographically diverse set of countries,” said Laura Clancy, a research analyst at Pew.

In China, the leadership has touted that the country has gained more friends and that friendships have become stronger around the world, typically among developing nations. Beijing’s massive global infrastructure building scheme, known as the Belt and Road Initiative, is credited with bringing economic benefits to foreign countries and winning friends for Beijing, according to China’s state media, contrary to Western criticism that those projects could saddle host countries with debt and harm the environment.

The views of the U.S. have shifted over time alongside changes to the presidency, Clancy said.

In 2023, a median of 56% across 22 countries had confidence in Biden, compared to 19% in Xi. In 2019, medians of the same 22 countries having confidence Donald Trump, then the U.S. president, and Xi were 31% and 28%, respectively.

In the latest survey, 83% people in Poland expressed confidence in Biden, compared to 8% in Xi, registering the widest gap of 75 percentage points, the report said. The spread was at least 50 points in countries such as Germany, Japan and Sweden. The gap narrowed in middle-income countries, but still more had more confidence in Biden and Xi, the report said.

“These gaps in views of the American and Chinese leaders reflect both souring attitudes toward Xi in high-income countries and greater confidence in Biden – particularly compared with his predecessor, Donald Trump,” the report said.

In 2007, the gaps between the U.S. and China in terms of likeability were narrower under different leaders in both countries.

Then, a median of 53% across 15 countries reported favorable views of the U.S., compared to a median of 43% with favorable views of China. In 2023, medians of 59% and 27% across the same countries had favorable views of the U.S. and of China, respectively, according to Pew.

That was near the end of the George W. Bush presidency in 2007, when confidence in Bush was limited, and China’s then-President Hu Jintao received more positive ratings, the center said.

In other results, the Pew polls have found:

— The surveyed countries were more likely to see the U.S. as interfering in the affairs of other countries than China.

— Most countries said the U.S. accounted for their country’s interests more so than China. Israel led the pack with a 65-percentage-point difference.

— The U.S. got higher marks than China for contributing to global peace and stability. The difference was greatest in Japan, where 79% said the U.S. contributed at least a fair amount to international stability, compared to 14% who said the same of China.

— Most considered the U.S. to be the leading economy. In South Korean, 83% of the respondents said the U.S. was the world’s leading economic power, compared to only 8% who said China was the leading power. Italy was on the other end of the spectrum, with 55% of the respondents said China was the leading economy, compared to 31% who would give that title to the U.S.

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Politicians have long sought to project vitality, youth and a common touch by staging photo shoots spotlighting their athletic prowess. California Gov. Gavin Newsom is the latest to find out that plans for a confident jump shot can turn into a torrent of online potshots. On a trip to China, the two-term Democrat took a detour from his official meetings on climate change to join a group of Beijing schoolkids for a game of basketball.

Before long, he was on his backside after accidentally steamrolling a grade-school defender. No one was injured, but Newsom joins a long line of political figures whose attempts at a sporty glamour shot didn’t work out as planned.

In a similar scene, British politician Boris Johnson, then mayor of London, knocked down a 10-year-old boy while playing a friendly game of rugby on a trip to Japan. Bill Clinton and Al Gore were needled for photos of them jogging in snug short-shorts while in office. In the 2004 presidential election, shots of Democrat John Kerry windsurfing were used in an ad mocking him as an unprincipled candidate who heads “whichever way the wind blows.” George W. Bush’s penchant for mountain biking occasionally ended up with him on the ground, including when he collided with a police officer on a trip to Scotland that left the officer with a bruised ankle and the president scraped up.

Video circulating online shows Newsom wearing slacks, an open-collared shirt and dress shoes while towering over schoolchildren on the court. The governor playfully twirls a basketball on a fingertip, then executes a spin move as he heads toward the basket.

When a boy in front of him appears to reach for the ball, Newsom seemingly does not see a second student on his left. The governor loses his balance.

They collide and go to the ground together, but both come up smiling and the governor gives the boy a few back pats. “I got you,” the governor can be heard telling the boy, as he gives him a hug. The snarky reception online was predictable. “Flagrant foul,” Fox News tweeted. “Newsom destroys kid during basketball game in China,” celebrity website TMZ tweeted.

Other online comments ranged from “I can’t stop watching” to a post calling the collision a “diplomatic victory for America.” Newsom’s tumble provided a lighthearted — if embarrassing — moment on a trip that included a surprise meeting with leader Xi Jinping and was filled with warm words not seen in years in the strained China-U.S. relationship. It appeared that his basketball stumble provided the broadest publicity he received on his visit.

Newsom was an athletic standout in his student days. He played basketball and baseball in high school and attended Santa Clara University on a partial baseball scholarship. An injury ended his playing career. Newsom jokingly told the Los Angeles Fox News affiliate that he “needed to work” on his balance.

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SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — California Gov. Gavin Newsom will try to reinforce his state’s role as a global leader on climate change as he begins a weeklong visit to China on Monday, a trip that presents both political risk and opportunity for crucial international collaboration.

Newsom’s tour begins with a discussion in Hong Kong before he continues on to Beijing, Shanghai and the provinces of Guangdong and Jiangsu. He’ll visit the first Chinese city to deploy an all-electric bus fleet, tour an offshore wind facility and see a wetlands preserve. He’ll sign agreements with leaders of Chinese provinces to set mutual commitments on a host of climate goals. California has already signed dozens of such agreements with subnational governments.

Newsom’s agenda also includes conversations on “strengthening cultural ties and combating xenophobia,” and he will visit a school with his wife, Jennifer Siebel Newsom.

His trip to China follows a brief visit to Israel.

Governors of California, which has an economy larger than most countries, have a long history of climate collaboration with China. Democrat Jerry Brown and Republican Arnold Schwarzenegger also traveled there to swap knowledge on reducing air pollution and emissions, and since leaving office, Brown has launched the California-China Climate Institute at the University of California, Berkeley.

However, Newsom’s trip comes at a very different political moment, with rising tensions between the United States and China over trade, human rights, the future of Taiwan and international conflicts. It follows a recent visit to Beijing by a congressional delegation led by U.S. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, who sought a sharper condemnation of Hamas by the Chinese government.

Climate remains one area where collaboration is seen as both possible and necessary. Both countries appear to have fully re-engaged in the run-up to the next U.N. climate change conference, which opens Nov. 30 in Dubai.

China suspended climate and other talks with the U.S. in August 2022 to show its anger over a visit by then-U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to Taiwan. Chinese President Xi Jinping agreed to resume climate talks three months later at a meeting with President Joe Biden in Indonesia.

John Kerry, the U.S. climate envoy, held in-person meetings in Beijing in July, and he and Chinese counterpart Xie Zhenhua have held regular video calls since then, Xie told a forum in Beijing last month.

David Victor, a professor and co-director of the Deep Decarbonization Initiative at the University of California, San Diego, said state-level dialogue is an important avenue for progress given the complicated politics of the U.S.-China relationship. Animosity between the two countries has led to less travel and fewer joint research projects.

“The states really are where anything substantive is going to happen,” Victor said, while at the national level, “there’s no political constituency for opening the door and having a deeper relationship.”

The Newsom administration has been in close contact with the White House and Kerry ahead of the governor’s trip, said Lauren Sanchez, the governor’s senior climate adviser. The White House did not comment on Newsom’s trip.

Brown, the former governor, said political tensions don’t change the fact that greenhouse gases are still being emitted at an alarming rate.

“Cooperation is the absolute requirement. And at this time, I would say California has been pushing the federal government in the direction of more dialogue with China,” Brown said. “It has a very important long-term effect.”

California has passed some of the world’s most aggressive vehicle emissions rules, and Newsom has moved to ban the sale of most new gas-powered cars in the state by 2035. The state has a mandate to be carbon neutral by 2045, meaning it will remove as much carbon from the atmosphere as it emits. California is already dealing with drought and wildfires made worse by climate change.

Still, the state is responsible for less than 1% of the planet’s greenhouse gas emissions, meaning its efforts can go only so far without global partnerships, Sanchez said. In 2020, China was responsible for more than 30% of global carbon dioxide emissions, compared with the U.S. at 13.5%.

“It’s going to be very difficult to tackle the climate crisis just here in California,” Sanchez said. “Climate change is a global issue, it requires global partnerships.”

California has shared its expertise on air pollution regulations, carbon pricing programs and conservation, Sanchez said.

China, meanwhile, is now more advanced at electrifying the transportation fleet and deploying offshore wind — it has more gigawatts of offshore wind power than the rest of the world combined, Sanchez said. The Biden administration recently held an auction for five offshore wind lease areas along the U.S. West Coast.

Newsom’s second term ends in January 2026, and he cannot seek re-election. He has repeatedly denied an interest in running for president, but he has sought to boost his national profile by campaigning for Democrats in Republican-led states and even agreeing to debate GOP presidential hopeful and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis in late November.

The international trip stands to bolster Newsom’s political and policy credentials beyond his state. However, opponents will likely be on the lookout for any signs of coziness between him and China’s communist government that could be used against him in the future.

California Republicans said Newsom shouldn’t be visiting China at a time of tensions over international conflicts and the suppression of free speech. Instead he should focus on problems at home like poverty and crime, Republican state Assembly Leader James Gallagher said in a statement.

“Newsom shouldn’t be playing make-believe diplomat while ignoring the challenges facing our state,” he said.

But climate experts said California has a significant role to play in advancing global climate policy.

“It’s a major clean energy leader. It’s one of the leading economies in the world. It has a huge amount of technical expertise,” said Nathaniel Keohane, president of the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions. “There’s a natural role for California and the California governor.”

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