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Cases like Yang's are becoming increasingly common. In 2022, British Chinese lawyer Christine Lee was accused by the MI5 of acting through the UFWD to cultivate relationships with influential people in the UK. The following year, Liang Litang, a US citizen who ran a Chinese restaurant in Boston, was indicted for providing information about Chinese dissidents in the area to his contacts in the UFWD.

And in September, Linda Sun, a former aide in the New York governor's office, was charged with using her position to serve Chinese government interests - receiving benefits, including travel, in return. According to Chinese state media reports, she had met a top UFWD official in 2017, who told her to "be an ambassador of Sino-American friendship".

It is not uncommon for prominent and successful Chinese people to be associated with the party, whose approval they often need, especially in the business world.

But where is the line between peddling influence and espionage?

"The boundary between influence and espionage is blurry" when it comes to Beijing's operations, said Ho-fung Hung, a politics professor at Johns Hopkins University.