Three years before California realtor Wanying “Heather” Zhang was arrested as an alleged Chinese agent, she showed up in San Francisco celebrating the visit of President Xi Jinping.
Zhang was photographed in 2023 wearing a red cap and marching on the street alongside the leader of a Chinese American organization with deep ties to the Beijing government’s foreign influence arm.
Soon after the photo was taken, pro-Chinese Communist Party activists there began assaulting protesters of Xi’s authoritarian regime — though there is no evidence Zhang was involved in any attacks.
The Orange County mother, 34, is now facing federal prosecution for allegedly surveilling the Taiwanese president’s son in Washington last year at the direction of Chinese government officials.
The FBI said it has obtained her text messages with Chinese intelligence officials, plotting and executing a plan to secretly film Taiwan’s first son, Lai Ting-yu, and his family in the Seattle suburb where they live.
Investigators even allege they have footage from a neighbor’s security camera catching Zhang in the midst of her surveillance mission.
A CBS News investigation reveals the alleged agent’s backstory bears striking similarities with infamous suspected Chinese spy Fang “Christine” Fang, who had an intimate relationship with disgraced congressman Eric Swalwell before fleeing to China in 2015 amid an FBI espionage probe.
Like Fang, Zhang attended the University of International Relations in Beijing, which is run by China’s Ministry of State Security, the country’s intelligence agency and secret police.
In a criminal complaint filed in a Los Angeles court, FBI counterintelligence special agent Kevin Holt wrote that the ministry “recruits heavily” from the university.
After moving to the U.S., Zhang studied at the University of Southern California and got her real estate license in 2016.
She built her business as a realtor with Irvine-based JC Pacific Corp over the next decade, listing over 130 properties, according to Zillow, with prices ranging from the hundreds of thousands to upwards of $8 million.
Zhang and her husband, a fellow realtor at JC Pacific, bought their six-bedroom, 6,030-square-foot home for $5.65 million in 2024, records show. They sold the property in June for $6 million.
Her Instagram page shows curated photos of Zhang in designer clothing, dining at expensive restaurants, taking trips around the U.S. and Canada, and shopping at luxury stores with a friend in Paris last year.
Similar to Fang, she became involved in advocacy groups and events for Chinese Americans.
In 2022 she attended an “entrepreneurship competition” for Chinese students with Chinese government consulate officials, and was honored at an event for “Chinese young elites in the United States” the same year where she was given a “young entrepreneur” award.
Her involvement in the All American Chinese Association brought her in contact with officials who had deep ties to the Chinese government.
AACA’s leader, Cai Chenghua, was vice chair of the China Council for the Promotion of International Trade, a U.S. group so close to the Beijing government it had to register under the Foreign Agents Registration Act as an influence arm of the Chinese Communist Party.
In 2022 Cai helped organize a celebration of China’s National Day at which the Los Angeles consul general Zhang Ping urged Chinese Americans to oppose “Taiwan independence” and support China’s “complete reunification.”
AACA bused in pro-China supporters to San Francisco for President Xi’s visit in November 2023. Zhang was photographed alongside Cai, wearing matching red caps behind an AACA banner.
AACA board member Tian Jun is also a committee member in the Overseas Chinese Affairs Office, which became part of the Chinese government’s United Front in 2018, according to research by Michael Lucci, a security consultant who helps protect U.S. institutions from Chinese influence through his firm, State Armor.
Cai has been photographed at several events with former Arcadia, California, Mayor Eileen Wang, who pleaded guilty to acting as a Chinese government agent in May.
“U.S.-based groups linked to the Communist Party’s United Front through their key personnel keep coming up in federal foreign-agent cases,” Jacqueline Deal, an adviser to State Armor, told CBS News.”This is not a coincidence. The mission of these organizations is to help the Party and hurt the United States.”
At a minimum, Deal said officers from these groups should have to register with the U.S. Justice Department under the Foreign Agents Registration Act. That’s the federal law Zhang is alleged to have violated by acting as a Chinese agent without registering as required.
Cai has not been accused of any wrongdoing or charged with any crime. He did not respond to a request for comment.
According to prosecutors, by 2025 Zhang had fully embraced a role as a Chinese government agent.
She traveled to China in January that year and met a government official and fellow graduate of the University of International Relations, the FBI affidavit said.
Two months later, the pair texted on Chinese messaging app WeChat about the address of a Taiwanese official who spoke out against the Chinese government, according to records obtained by a search warrant of Zhang’s iCloud account, the FBI agent wrote.
She allegedly visited China again in June and met with a second Chinese official in the private room of a restaurant, where investigators believe she received her mission to surveil the Taiwanese president’s son.
She later texted her alleged government handler: “I can take care of this thing.”
After recording video of Lai and his family, she returned to LA without incident, according to the complaint. She was arrested while attempting to board a flight to Shanghai at Los Angeles International Airport on Sunday.
She appeared in court on Monday dressed in the same designer workout gear she was wearing during the arrest.
Her family declined to comment.
“The complaint in this case lays bare a brazen plot directed by the Chinese government to conduct a covert surveillance mission on U.S. soil targeting close relatives of a Taiwanese government official,” said Roman Rozhavsky, assistant director of the FBI’s Counterintelligence and Espionage Division, in a statement released Monday.
“Wanying Zhang’s arrest for allegedly acting as an unregistered agent of the Chinese government makes clear how far China’s authoritarian regime will go to advance its goals,” he said.
A spokesperson for the Taiwanese president told CBS News he condemns “such brutal acts of suppression, intimidation, and even harm to the freedom and democracy of people or their families, which are unacceptable in the civilized world.”
“We thank the US judicial agency for their assistance and protection to our people,” the spokesperson said. “Taiwan will continue to cooperate with all democratic allies to jointly combat illegal acts of cross-border repression.”
The Chinese Foreign Ministry did not respond to CBS News’ request for comment. A spokesperson told NBC News, “China has always opposed hyped-up accusations of ‘China spying’ that slander and smear the country.”
