Chinese and U.S. flags flutter near The Bund, before U.S. trade delegation meet their Chinese counterparts for talks in Shanghai, China July 30, 2019.
Chinese and U.S. flags flutter near The Bund, before U.S. trade delegation meet their Chinese counterparts for talks in Shanghai, China July 30, 2019. Reuters / Aly Song

U.S. prosecutors have accused China of trying to harass and undermine an American critic of China who is running for U.S. Congress, according to a criminal complaint unsealed on Wednesday in federal court in Brooklyn.

Federal prosecutors said a Chinese government agent named Qiming Lin asked a U.S.-based private investigator to help manufacture a political scandal that would undermine the congressional candidate.

The candidate was not identified in court documents, but fits the description of Xiong Yan, who is seeking the Democratic nomination to run for a U.S. House of Representatives seat representing the eastern part of New York's Long Island.

Yan is a dissident who was involved in the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989. He served in the U.S. Army and is a naturalized U.S. citizen.

Lin is accused of a conspiracy to commit interstate harassment, among other charges.

A lawyer for Lin could not be identified from court documents.

According to the complaint, Lin is a retired agent of the Ministry of State Security, a Chinese intelligence agency, but "continued to act on behalf of the MSS even if ostensibly retired."

Yan's office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.