Two foreign nationals are accused of stalking a Los Angeles artist who is a critic of Chinese President Xi Jinping.
“Cui Guanghai, 43, of China, and John Miller, 63, of the U.K. and a U.S. lawful permanent resident, were charged with interstate stalking, conspiracy to commit interstate stalking, smuggling and violating the Arms Export Control Act,” the Los Angeles Times reports, citing information from the U.S. Department of Justice.
The DOJ said in a news release that the charges of smuggling out military weaponry come from Milwaukee, but the stalking charges relate to an unnamed artist who planned to protest a 2023 appearance by Xi at an economic summit and who made “artistic statues of President Xi and his wife” to be unveiled this year, prosecutors said.
In both instances, Cui and Miller hired a pair of others to do the actual work, prosecutors said, including orders to “surveil the victim, to install a tracking device on the victim’s car, to slash the tires on the victim’s car, and to purchase and destroy a pair of artistic statues created by the victim depicting President Xi and President Xi’s wife.”
A different pair of people was utilized in 2025 to try to dissuade the artist from showing new statues online, the DOJ said.
Unfortunately for Cui and Miller, all four of those people they hired for assistance in Southern California were “affiliated with and acting at the direction of the FBI,” the DOJ explained.
In the release, several high-ranking federal officials expressed their support for protecting free-speech rights of U.S. residents against foreign interference, as well as protecting sensitive technology used by the American military.
“This is a blatant assault on both our national security and our democratic values,” said Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche. “This Justice Department will not tolerate foreign repression on U.S. soil, nor will we allow hostile nations to infiltrate or exploit our defense systems. We will act decisively to expose and dismantle these threats wherever they emerge.”
If convicted, Cui and Miller could face decades in federal prison. Maximum sentences are as follows:
- Five years for conspiracy
- Five years for interstate stalking
- 20 years for violating the Arms Export Control Act
- 10 years for smuggling
