US citizen sentenced to life in China for spying had ties to senior officials, exposes national security threats.

John Shing-Wan Leung, an American citizen, has been sentenced to life in prison by a Chinese court on charges of espionage. Leung is a veteran leader of several pro-Beijing groups in the United States and has had close ties with senior Chinese government officials for years. Leung's Texas organization is affiliated with a pro-China, Taiwan-focused lobby group based in Washington DC, the National Association for China’s Peaceful Unification (NACPU), where Leung sits on the board of directors as an executive member. The sentencing of Leung comes at a time when relations between Beijing and Washington are at their lowest point in half a century amid intensifying rivalry over trade, technology, geopolitics, and military supremacy.