On Wednesday, the United States (US) Department of Justice (DOJ) announced that the first Chinese spy to be extradited to the country has been sentenced to 20 years by a Cincinnati court on multiple charges of economic espionage activities related to the aviation sector.
In a statement, the DOJ accused the defendant, Yanjun Xu, 42, of using “a range of techniques to attempt to steal technology and proprietary information” from American aviation companies by recruiting employees on a paid trip to China under the guise of giving a presentation at a university.
Chinese Government Intelligence Officer Sentenced to 20 Years in Prison for Espionage Crimes, Attempting to Steal Trade Secrets From Cincinnati Companyhttps://t.co/nXc03c7w43
— National Security Division, U.S. Dept of Justice (@DOJNatSec) November 16, 2022
Xu, who was the Deputy Division Director of the Sixth Bureau of the Jiangsu Province Ministry of State Security (MSS), began targeting specific aviation companies in the US and overseas since at least December 2013 by using aliases, shell companies, and universities to “deceive” aviation employees to solicit information.
To this end, Xu attempted to steal GE Aviation’s exclusive composite aircraft engine fan module technology to benefit China in March 2017 by convincing a GE employee to give a report at a Chinese university in May. The scheme fell apart soon after when the employee returned to the US and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) took over and began posing as the said employee.
In January 2018, Xu requested the “system specification, design process” from the employee, which the employee sent with the permission of GE, which was working with the FBI by that point. The next month, he requested the employee to meet him in Belgium after two months, which is when Xu was arrested. After he was arrested on 1 April, 2018, the DOJ’s Office of International Affairs soon extradited him from Belgium.
GE Aviation is known to produce turbine engines for many US Military aircraft like the F-15 Eagle, F/A-18 Super Hornet, the UH-60 Blackhawk and CH-47 Chinook helicopters, and the C-5 Galaxy strategic transport. They also recently completed the final testing on an upgraded engine for the F-35 Lightning stealth fighter jet.
The operation was executed with “full coordination” between the MSS and the Chinese aviation entities. Xu also openly talked about efforts to secure information about the US military, apart from commercial aviation trade secrets.
Xu also recruited a Chinese citizen named Ji Chaoqun, who was studying in Chicago, to “collect biographical information” of potential recruits and registered him as an MSS agent. Ji successfully infiltrated the US Military in January 2016 on behalf of the MSS, and reported to an undercover FBI agent about having access to all military bases and “volunteered, without prompting, to take pictures of aircraft carriers for the MSS.” A Chicago jury convicted Ji in September for working on behalf of the MSS under Xu.
I spent 3 wks in Ohio last year at this trial. Fascinating case. The highest ranking Chinese spy ever extradited to face charges in the US. Convicted of espionage & trying to steal trade secrets from GE aviation and others. Sentenced to 20 yrs today. Big win for FBI & DOJ. https://t.co/6QZUe31ZZh
— Katherine Davis (@KD60Minutes) November 16, 2022
A Cincinnati court convicted Xu last November, with the DOJ requesting a 25-year prison term. In their sentencing memo, the prosecutors accused him of leveraging “human intelligence sources, as well as cyber techniques,” and recruiting and duping assets, “namely ethnic Chinese insiders at Western aviation firms.”
“Today’s sentence demonstrates the seriousness of those crimes and the Justice Department’s determination to investigate and prosecute efforts by the Chinese government, or any foreign power, to threaten our economic and national security,” US Attorney General Merrick Garland asserted.
Similarly, FBI Director Christopher Wray remarked, “This case is just the latest example of the Chinese government’s continued attacks on American economic security – and, by extension, our national security,” adding, “This brazen action shows that the Chinese government will stop at nothing to put our companies out of business to the detriment of US workers.”
Wray noted that “the scale of their hacking program, and the amount of personal and corporate data that their hackers have stolen, is greater than every other country combined.”
@FBICincinnati Special Agent in Charge J. William Rivers said the outcome of this case serves as a warning to foreign governments that the U.S. will not tolerate this type of illegal activity. pic.twitter.com/NdVjKMeGEn
— FBI (@FBI) November 16, 2022
The latest sentencing follows the recent case last month when the DOJ charged seven Chinese nationals for conspiring to act as illegal agents of the Chinese government, revealing that they had plotted to forcefully repatriate a Chinese national residing in the US.
Similarly, in March, the US charged five people for working on behalf of China’s secret police and stalking, spying on, and harassing Chinese dissidents. The Justice Department accused the five men of perpetrating “transnational repression schemes to target US residents whose political views and actions are disfavoured” by the Chinese Communist Party (CPC).
Two months later, the US Justice Department charged another four Chinese officials and an American for intimidating Chinese dissidents, including Tibetans, Uyghurs, and Hong Kongers.
The Chinese government has in recent years significantly stepped up efforts to both expand its security presence in the US and infiltrate government institutions and private companies. A 2020 report by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) noted that from 2000 to 2020, there were at least 160 reported cases of Chinese espionage against the US and over 1,000 cases of intellectual property theft committed by Chinese entities against US companies. It noted that 85% of cases involved Chinese agents trying to acquire US military and commercial technologies.
Additionally, CSIS has reported that while 32% of the people involved in spying for China are private Chinese citizens, 26% are non-Chinese actors, “usually US citizens recruited by Chinese officials.” For instance, in December 2021, the US convicted Harvard professor Charles Lieber for lying to the FBI regarding his work with the Chinese government and failing to disclose the salary paid to him by the Wuhan University of Technology.
A report by the United States China Commission in July claimed that China is also involved in “agricultural espionage.” It noted that China has been investing heavily in US agricultural land and that Chinese scientists have sometimes chosen to steal US agriculture IP and technology.