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Communist China is bringing its police state to California

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The Chinese Communist Party doesn’t believe its police state should end at China’s borders. Beijing believes its power to surveil, intimidate and control its enemies follows them wherever they go. Including right here to California.

The latest example, it appears, was living in Irvine.

Wanying “Heather” Zhang, a 34-year-old realtor, was arrested by the FBI Saturday at Los Angeles International Airport as she prepared to leave for China. Federal prosecutors accuse her of acting as an unregistered agent of the People’s Republic of China.

According to an FBI affidavit, Zhang traveled to Seattle last year at the direction of Chinese government officials to surveil a close relative of a Taiwanese government official. She allegedly sent her handlers photographs, videos and license-plate information.

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First Assistant US Attorney Bill Essayli said Zhang coordinated the operation with an associate and “used tradecraft to avoid detection.”

“We just arrested a Chinese foreign agent at LAX attempting to depart for China,” Essayli announced Saturday.

Zhang has not been convicted, and the allegations against her will have to be proven in court. But there is nothing mysterious about the intentions of the Chinese Communist Party. Beijing has spent years pushing its intelligence, influence and coercion operations far beyond China’s borders.

And California keeps turning up in the case files.

There was the case of suspected Chinese spy Christine Fang (“Fang Fang”), whose relationship with disgraced former........

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