Federal charges were unsealed Monday against American journalist Thomas Pauken II for acting as an agent of the Chinese government. Pauken is the son of former Republican politician Tom Pauken, who served in the Reagan administration and chaired the Texas Republican Party from 1994 to 1997.

According to the charges, Pauken, who has lived and worked in China for over a decade, allegedly “prepared confidential reports that his Chinese handler told him were being conveyed to Chinese President Xi Jinping.” The charges also note that Pauken underwent a lie detector test to satisfy his Chinese handler.

Pauken, who previously worked for numerous CCP state-controlled media outlets including China Radio International, China Central Television, China Global Television Network, and Xinhua, reportedly returned to the U.S. in January 2025 and gave a cellphone and laptop to an individual who was seeking a job with the Trump administration. Pauken then returned to China after being confronted by the FBI about his activities and was told to proceed as if no meeting had occurred with the Bureau. But in February of this year, he once again returned to the U.S. and gave the person he previously gave the cellphone and laptop to “a SIM card and offered him a $10,000 bonus to work with Pauken’s Chinese handler, providing ‘one report per week’ that ‘would influence policy and be read by Xi Jinping.’” Pauken was arrested shortly after the meeting.

The case illustrates an increasingly concerning new front in the subversion efforts of Xi Jinping’s communist regime against the U.S. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has traditionally relied on individuals with direct personal ties to China for malign purposes, including Chinese nationals, Chinese foreign exchange students, and Chinese immigrants. But Pauken’s case appears to demonstrate that the regime is willing to trust non-Chinese individuals with carrying out clandestine operations for the regime, even specifically targeting those who are connected to political figures. An FBI affidavit noted that Pauken told the Bureau that “all his Chinese associates were obsessed with attaining information” on his father.

“China uses every point of contact with the U.S. to obtain information and to take down American society,” China expert and author Gordon Chang told The Washington Stand. “It should be no surprise, then, that China has recruited those not ethnically Chinese as its agents.”

Chang, who serves as a distinguished senior fellow at the Gatestone Institute, went on to argue that cases similar to Pauken’s are likely to continue to surface. “Law enforcement devotes insufficient resources to countering Chinese efforts, the U.S. government has not identified China as an enemy, and we are allowing more Chinese points of contact with our society. Our courts hand out slap-on-the-wrist sentences to those caught working for the Chinese regime. We know what the Chinese are doing, we have the means to stop them, and as a society, we have decided not to stop them.”

Lt. Colonel (Ret.) Robert Maginnis, who serves as senior fellow for National Security at Family Research Council, concurred, telling TWS that “the CCP does not think in narrow Western categories about espionage, diplomacy, economics, media, technology, or even warfare. Beijing practices what it often calls ‘unrestricted warfare,’ a whole-of-society strategy designed to weaken adversaries across every domain simultaneously.”

“That is why the alleged Thomas Pauken II case matters,” he continued. “If the allegations are accurate, it suggests the CCP increasingly recruits according to usefulness, access, and influence — not ethnicity. In practical terms, Beijing appears willing to cultivate anyone capable of advancing Chinese interests inside the United States, whether journalist, academic, businessman, politician, contractor, influencer, or former official.”

Maginnis further warned that the CCP “seeks far more than traditional espionage. Beijing aims to reshape the global order itself through economic leverage, ideological pressure, technological dominance, propaganda, military modernization, and covert influence inside rival societies. The regime uses every instrument of national power — legal and illegal, overt, and covert — to advance what Xi Jinping calls the ‘great rejuvenation’ of China. In that framework, espionage is only one component of a much broader campaign.”

In addition, “China’s intelligence services and political warfare apparatus increasingly rely on what amounts to a global enterprise of agents, collaborators, cyber operatives, and influence networks,” he explained. “That approach naturally expands beyond Chinese nationals because Beijing understands something many Americans still resist admitting: the most effective influence operations often come through trusted local voices who do not appear connected to a foreign adversary. Journalists and media personalities become strategically valuable because narratives shape public perception, weaken national cohesion, influence policy debates, and erode confidence in institutions.”

Maginnis went on to contend that artificial intelligence is rapidly shaping the U.S.’s struggle with China. “It is evolving into a contest over algorithms, information dominance, surveillance, and control of digital infrastructure. AI is the new strategic high ground, and authoritarian regimes increasingly merge technology, intelligence collection, censorship, and influence operations into a unified system of power. China’s ‘Digital Dragon,’ as I call it, is engineered not only to manipulate Chinese citizens but to project influence outward into democratic societies.”

Maginnis added that individuals like Pauken may become ensnared in the CCP’s subversion operations without fully realizing it. “The CCP no longer needs to rely primarily on classic spies stealing documents in trench coats. Modern Chinese intelligence operations can recruit or influence individuals who shape narratives, collect information, provide access, move technology, influence policy circles, or normalize Beijing’s worldview. In many cases, those people may not even initially view themselves as participants in espionage.”

“I believe this alleged case may reflect a broader evolution already underway,” he concluded. “The CCP appears increasingly willing to use any individual — regardless of ethnicity or background — who can help undermine American cohesion, weaken resistance to Beijing’s ambitions, or provide strategic advantage. That is entirely consistent with China’s long-term pattern of engaging in a comprehensive struggle for global power, and in that struggle, every sector of society becomes potential terrain for influence or penetration.”