Chinese engineer Ji Chaoqun jailed for 8 years for spying in US

• Ji Chaoqun, 31, was sentenced to eight years in prison for espionage in the US.
• The case involved Chinese attempts to steal aircraft trade secrets.
• He was found guilty of making false statements to the US Army.

A Chinese engineer Ji Chaoqun was sentenced to eight years in prison for espionage in the US, in a case involving Chinese attempts to steal aircraft trade secrets.

According to the US Department of Justice, Ji Chaoqun, 31, had identified scientists and engineers for potential recruitment.

Additionally, while lying to recruiters, he enlisted in the US Army Reserves.

According to US sources, Ji was directed by a significant Chinese state intelligence organization.

He was found guilty in September of making false statements to the US Army and operating as an agent of a foreign government without alerting the US attorney general, both of which are charges used in espionage prosecutions.

He was charged with giving the Jiangsu Province Ministry of State Security (JSSD) information on eight people for potential recruitment.

All of the people are naturalized US citizens who were born in China or Taiwan, and some of them are employed by US defense contractors.

In accordance with a program that enlists foreign nationals with abilities deemed essential to the national interest, Ji also enlisted in the US Army Reserves in 2016.

US officials claimed that he had lied about having no interaction with a foreign government in the previous seven years in both his application and interview.

After meeting with an undercover US law enforcement officer posing as a member of China’s Ministry of State Security, Ji was ultimately detained in September 2018. (MSS).

Ji had mentioned in those encounters that he could tour aircraft carriers and snap pictures of them if he obtained a military ID.

He stated that he would look for employment with the CIA, FBI, or NASA after receiving his US citizenship and security clearance.

According to US officials, Ji planned to work in cybersecurity at one of those organizations to gain access to all of their databases, including those that house scientific information.

The first Chinese intelligence officer to be extradited to the US for trial, Xu Yanjun, a key MSS official, according to US authorities, gave Ji his orders.

For planning to steal trade secrets from US aviation and aerospace corporations, including General Electric, Xu was given a 20-year sentence in federal prison last year.

Zheng Xiaoqing, a former employee of General Electric, was sentenced to two years in prison earlier this month in the US for disclosing sensitive information to the Chinese government.

Christopher Wray, the director of the FBI, stated in July that China intended to “ransack” the intellectual property of Western businesses in order to hasten its own industrial development and eventually control several important industries.

The response from China at the time was that Mr. Wray was “smearing China” and had a “Cold War mentality.”

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