Two charged with stalking, harassing LA-based critic of President Xi Jinping

LOS ANGELES (CN) — Two individuals were charged with coordinating and directing a scheme to stalk, harass and intimidate a Los Angeles-based artist who had publicly criticized Chinese President Xi Jinping and who displayed statues of Xi and his wife, bare-chested and kneeling with their hands tied behind their backs.

Cui Guanghai, 43, of China, and John Miller, 63, of the United Kingdom, were arrested by Serbia law enforcement at the request of the U.S., according to a statement Friday by federal prosecutors in Los Angeles.

They are accused of interstate stalking and conspiracy, according to the criminal complaint unsealed Friday.

In 2023, when Xi was attending the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in November 2023. The two are accused of enlisting a U.S. resident to stalk the LA-based artist, who wasn’t identified by name in the announcement and criminal complaint, and intimidate him so that he wouldn’t go to San Francisco to protest against Xi and the Chinese government.

The artist had also shown the statutes on a huge billboard he rented in Times Square, New York City, in 2023, according to the FBI.

Unbeknownst to the plotters, their U.S.-based associate, who previously had set up a staged protest against the visit of the Taiwanese president to LA at their behest, was an FBI informant and brought in an undercover FBI agent to help pretend they were actually doing their bidding.

Cui and Miller directed them to surveil the victim, to install a tracking device on their car, to slash the car’s tires and to purchase and destroy the offending statues of Xi and his wife.

“The strategy has changed, now they do want someone to talk to him and offer to buy the statues from him, offer him $2-3K to give them up and explain its in his best interests, a bit like in the godfather it’s an offer he can’t refuse,” Miller told the undercover agent in November 2023.

The FBI, to further the investigation, agreed with the artist to pay him for the statutes and destroyed them as instructed by Miller.

Earlier this year, the Cui and Miller tried a similar scheme when the artist announced that he planned to make public an online video feed depicting two new statues of Xi and his wife, again bare-chested and on their knees.

In connection with these plots, Cui and Miller paid two people, whom again they didn’t know were working for the FBI, about $36,500 to convince the victim to desist from the online display of the statues.

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