The Lee and Leung cases are often cited by critics who say the U.S. government has overreached in some of its China spy investigations.
Criticism of the government's handling of such cases is far from universal. Some Chinese American activists who have long spoken out against the Communist government said the FBI was right to be concerned about spying.
David Ma, a 65-year-old international business consultant who lives in Alhambra, said he could understand why the FBI moved quickly in this case.
"I'm not saying they're doing a bad job," Ma said. "It's incomplete. They were in the midst of an investigation and these people tried to leave the country. What if they don't come back?"
But beyond the question of how the FBI has handled this investigation, Ma added that the string of cases also highlighted the tricky balancing act many Chinese Americans had to do when dealing with China.
Ma believes that as China's economy continues to boom, there are growing temptations for Chinese nationals who want to do business there to help the government any way it can.
"I'm not saying all of them are spies," he said. "But for some of them it is outright greed because they need to do business with [the Chinese government]. It's just like barter or exchange."
George Bao, a 55-year-old reporter for the Chinese Daily News who has been covering the latest spy scandal, said some of his readers had commented generally on the growing temptation locally to cash in on the China boom.
"In China now, money is everything," he said.
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Times staff writer David Pierson contributed to this report.
