The mayor of an affluent suburb of Los Angeles pleaded guilty to acting as an agent of the Chinese government last month. And while cable networks across the US had a field day with the story, Bloomberg’s Drake Bennett and Jordan Robertson have been reporting on cases like this one for years. The two co-hosted the podcast series, The Sixth Bureau, which detailed the inner workings of one of the most powerful and mysterious spy agencies in the world, China’s Ministry of State Security.

On today’s Big Take podcast, Drake and Jordan walk host David Gura through what we know about Wang’s case and what it tells us about the extent of Chinese propaganda and espionage in the United States amid ongoing tensions between the world’s two superpowers.

Further listening: http://swap.fm/l/9guIFZxhu17KqTWLxBFh 

Read more: https://www.bloomberg.com/features/the-sixth-bureau/

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Hosted by David Gura; Produced by Julia Press and Victor Yvellez; Reported by Drake Bennett and Jordan Robertson; Edited by Nicole Beemsterboer

Fact-checking by Laura Newcombe; Engineering by Alex Sugiura.

Senior Producer: Naomi Shavin; Deputy Executive Producer: Julia Weaver. Executive Producer: Nicole Beemsterboer.