Lin Qiming, an agent with China’s state security ministry, was accused in a criminal complaint of plotting to smear the congressional candidate.

The candidate was not identified in the complaint but his profile fits that of Yan Xiong, a former student leader of the 1989 Tiananmen Square pro-democracy protests who is seeking a seat in the House of Representatives from New York.

Yan, a former Beijing University Law School graduate student, fled to the US from China in 1992 and served in the US Army as a chaplain.

He announced in September that he was seeking the Democratic Party nomination for a seat in Congress from Long Island.

The US authorities issued an arrest warrant for Lin on a charge of “conspiracy to commit interstate harassment”.

According to the complaint, Lin contacted a private investigator in the US seeking information about Yan.

“We don’t want him to be elected,” Lin allegedly told the private investigator.