U.S. journalist gets two years after admitting work for China’s intelligence service

An American journalist who worked for Chinese news organizations has been sentenced to two years in federal prison after admitting that he acted in the United States as an agent of China’s government.

Thomas Weir Pauken II, 51, was sentenced September 1 in federal court in Alexandria, Virginia. The sentence also includes 36 months of supervised release and bars overseas travel during that period. Pauken pleaded guilty in June and does not plan to appeal, his lawyer told the Associated Press.

The conviction is for acting as an agent of a foreign government without notifying the U.S. attorney general. It is not a conviction for espionage or for passing classified information. Defense lawyer Charles Burnham said the government agreed in court that Pauken did not provide classified information to China.

Assignments, travel and at least $100,000

According to the Justice Department’s account of court records, Pauken worked from at least 2019 until February 2026 at the direction of people he knew worked for the People’s Republic of China.

One person, identified in court documents as “Cathy,” gave Pauken assignments that included meeting potential intelligence assets, supplying a laptop and cellphone for communication, passing on requests for information and reporting the results. The department said Cathy paid Pauken at least $100,000 and covered several trips from China to the United States between 2019 and 2025.

The Justice Department also said Pauken wrote reports for two other people in China and sold reports to a group in Wuhan seeking information about technology and the department itself. The Wuhan clients wanted help finding an expert who could assist with cyber espionage, according to the government’s account.

Those are allegations the government says are supported by court documents and Pauken’s guilty plea. The department’s sentencing release did not include a response from China’s government.

A journalist and an admitted government agent

Pauken moved to China in 2010 and worked for Chinese news organizations, including state broadcaster CCTV. He was most recently an editor at Xinhua, China’s state news agency, according to reporting by NBC News and the Associated Press.

His media work is part of the story, but it is not the legal test. The case turned on the work he admitted performing for people connected to China’s government inside the United States, and on his failure to disclose that agency relationship as required by federal law.

Burnham said after Pauken’s guilty plea that his client accepted responsibility. After sentencing, the lawyer said Pauken respected the court’s decision and emphasized that no classified information had been provided.

The distinction matters. Public descriptions of foreign-agent cases often collapse registration violations, intelligence gathering and espionage into one label. The record here supports a narrower statement: Pauken admitted acting as an undisclosed agent of a foreign government, received money for the work and was sentenced to two years. He was not sentenced for doing journalism, and the government did not establish that he transmitted classified material.

The Albert V. Bryan U.S. Courthouse in Alexandria, Virginia, is shown for context. The photograph does not depict Pauken or the sentencing.