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The FBI arrested a suspected Chinese agent at Los Angeles International Airport after she allegedly surveilled the Taiwanese president's U.S.-based son, law enforcement sources told CBS News.
Wanying "Heather" Zhang, an Irvine, California, realtor, was cuffed by federal law enforcement on Sunday before she boarded a flight to Shanghai, China, from LAX, on a charge of acting as an unregistered agent of a foreign government.

A criminal complaint, filed in federal court by a member of the FBI's counterintelligence squad in L.A., accused Zhang and an accomplice of traveling to Seattle, Washington, in September 2025 and taking pictures at the suburban home of a top Taiwanese official's family.

FBI Law enforcement sources told CBS News that the target was Ting-Yu Lai, the son of Taiwanese President Ching-Te Lai.
Ting-Yu, an engineer in his 30s, attended college in America and has a young U.S.-born son with his wife, Hsiao Chen, according to Taiwanese media reports. He now works for the Dutch multinational electronics firm Philips.
"If the PRC [People's Republic of China] wish to obtain leverage over the President of Taiwan during any potential conflict, the location and pictures of the close relatives of a high-ranking Taiwanese government official, including pictures of their homes and cars, could be useful to the PRC," wrote FBI Special Agent Kevin Holt in the Oct. 3, 2026, criminal complaint.

Chinese curators say the decision allowed ‘political elements to intrude into realm of art’

China has pulled out from one of Asia’s biggest contemporary art festivals after a row over the words “Taiwan pavilion” escalated into a diplomatic dispute between Beijing and South Korea.
The Gwangju Biennale, founded in 1995 and held every two years in Gwangju, in southwestern South Korea, is Asia’s longest-running contemporary art biennale. Its 16th edition will run from 5 September to 15 November across venues in the city, with 43 participating artists.
The Chinese exhibition team announced on Thursday that it had unanimously decided to withdraw from the Gwangju Biennale, two days before the festival opens to the public in the South Korean city.

According to the U.S. government, Chinese representatives have attempted to portray Washington as accepting Beijing’s position on Taiwan’s sovereignty, a claim the letters describe as inaccurate.

(Bloomberg) -- China has expelled a New York Times journalist from the country over an interview the US-based newspaper conducted with Taiwan’s president, as Beijing ramps up its campaign to isolate the self-ruled island on the world stage.