Tang Juan, a researcher who said she was focusing on biology, "was a fugitive from justice until last night," a senior Justice Department official said, but has now been charged in Sacramento. The circumstances of Tang's arrest were not clear, but she has not been charged with espionage.
US officials made the announcement just hours before Washington's deadline for Beijing to shutter its consulate in Houston, a move that triggered China to retaliateFriday by demanding the US close its consulate in Chengdu. Prosecutors earlier this week said that Tang concealed her connection to China's military in order to enter the US, lied to federal investigators about those links and subsequently tried to avoid arrest by taking refuge in the San Francisco consulate.
