By Staff
NORTHWEST ASIAN WEEKLY
A Chinese-born United States citizen has been cleared of accusations that he has been acting in the interests of the Chinese government, in a jury decision announced Monday in Boston.
Voice of America reported that a jury acquitted Litang Liang, 65, of charges that he acted as an unregistered Chinese agent in the U.S., allegedly gathering and passing along to the Chinese government information about specific people, and pro-Taiwan dissidents and groups within Boston’s Chinese community from 2018-2022. U.S. authorities brought the case against Liang in 2023.
Liang pleaded not guilty and denied the charges, which his lawyer, Derege Demissie, had called “ridiculous,” during trial.
Demissie said that Liang was a hotel worker, and had for years been an active hotel union member. Demissie also said that Liang was an organizer and activist in Boston’s Chinese American community.
Prosecutors claimed that Liang founded the New England Alliance for the Peaceful Unification of China, following a 2018 visit to Beijing to meet with an arm of the Chinese Communist Party. Prosecutors said that the focus of Liang’s group was to promote China’s overall goals to control Taiwan. Taiwan—which is democratically governed, and free of martial law since 1987—continues to deny China’s attempts to exert control over the island.
Prosecutors also alleged that Liang organized a 2019 counter-demonstration to pro-democracy protesters, and, in 2022, gave a Chinese official information on two potential local recruits for China’s anti-dissident intelligence gathering efforts.
Demissie said that, at the end of the day, the charges were nothing but scare tactics, and that they had achieved their purpose.
“This case would have meant nothing if it did not involve China,” Demissie said, according to Voice of America. “That’s what this is about. And it had the purpose of scaring people, and it achieved that purpose.”