United States prosecutors have charged a New York resident who took part in the Chinese pro-democracy movement that resulted in the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown with spying for China.

The Department of Justice (DoJ) said on Wednesday that Yuanjun Tang was charged with acting as an agent for China’s Ministry of State Security (MSS) from 2018 to 2023, and “making materially false statements” to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).

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Yuanjun had provided the MSS, the country’s principal intelligence agency, with information on “individuals and groups” viewed as “potentially adverse” to China’s interests, including “prominent US-based Chinese democracy activists and dissidents”, the DoJ said in a statement.

The 67-year-old had used “a particular email account, encrypted chats, text messages and audio and video calls” to relay information to his handler, said the statement. He had later “falsely claimed” to FBI officials that he was no longer able to access the email account.

Yuanjun, a native of China’s northeastern Jilin province, had been sentenced by the Chinese authorities to 20 years in prison for taking part in the 1989 democracy movement that resulted in the deadly Tiananmen Square crackdown in Beijing, serving eight years before being released.

He remained active in advocating for democracy in China and was repeatedly detained, questioned and harassed by the authorities before fleeing to Taiwan, according to a Taipei-based rights group that helped with his asylum bid in 2002.

Having been granted asylum in the US, he later became a citizen. The DoJ statement described how he “regularly participated in events with fellow PRC dissidents”, leading a nonprofit organisation dedicated to promoting democracy in China.

A spokesperson for the Chinese embassy to the US said he was unaware of the details of the case.

China firmly opposed “groundlessly slandering and smearing” of the country, the spokesperson said.