Increasingly, however, Gau had heard from someone else, a man who worked at the university in a vague administrative capacity. The original invitation had come from the head of a lab there studying helicopter design. Years before, Gau had made a series of trips from his home in Phoenix to speak at the Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, or NUAA, one of China’s most prestigious research institutions. as a superpower on the world stage.In January 2014, Arthur Gau, an aerospace engineer who was nearing retirement age, received an unexpected email from a long-lost acquaintance in China. On Tuesday, FBI Director Christopher Wray told a House panel that China poses the greatest long-term threat to American national security, saying Chinese agents will employ numerous illegal tactics to surpass the U.S. Xu was also accused of acting as the handler for a recently convicted MSS agent in Chicago, and directing an asset to install malware against a French aerospace manufacturer.Īfter Judge Timothy Black of Ohio sentenced Xu to 20 years in prison on Wednesday, Attorney General Merrick Garland said the 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."Ĭhina's predatory trade tactics and accusations of espionage have come under increased scrutiny by federal investigators and the FBI in recent years. "The government suggests that the prosecution and harsh punishment of one alleged Chinese intelligence officer will 'deter' an entire nation, an entire government structure, an entire political agenda," Xu's attorneys said, urging the judge to send him away for 55 months. He was not a rogue operator, or criminal mastermind or, in fact, in any way operating outside the scope of his employment." Describing Xu as a father, husband, and dedicated family man, defense attorneys wrote the defendant, "was working to further his country's interests. The Chinese official, they argued, was serving his country as he carried out the scheme. Xu's crimes, they said, must be punished to deter others from carrying out similar schemes.īut in a pre-sentencing memorandum of their own, Xu's legal team contended the government's stance "far exceeds sentences received by other individuals convicted of crimes involving the theft or attempted theft of trade secrets." Prosecutors asked for a sentence of 25 years behind bars, a lengthy sentence for the first Chinese intelligence officer ever to be extradited to the U.S. employee "to achieve his illegal objectives," the government argued. He was ultimately convicted for the "heavyhanded extortion" of a U.S. Xu's crimes came to a head in 2018, when he was arrested in Belgium and later extradited to the U.S. "He has made a career out of committing these crimes against foreign companies, all with the assumption that he would never face consequences for his actions." "Xu engaged in a wide reaching pattern of deception, computer hacking, and theft," prosecutors wrote in court documents ahead of Wednesday's sentencing. Prosecutors said he arranged and paid for apparently unwitting industry experts to travel to China in an attempt to obtain the information. He was accused of identifying specific aviation technology sought by the Chinese government and working with other MSS officers to co-opt executives of foreign technology companies and work to extract the desired information from them.Īt times using aliases and acting under the guise of Chinese universities, Xu tried to steal technology related to GE Aviation's composite aircraft engine fan, which has not been duplicated by any other company in the world, the Justice Department said. Yanjun Xu, a deputy division director of China's intelligence arm, known as the Ministry of State Security (MSS), was indicted in 2018. Washington - A Chinese intelligence officer convicted of economic espionage and stealing aviation trade secrets from companies including General Electric (GE) was sentenced to 20 years in federal prison on Wednesday, one year after a jury in Ohio convicted him on all counts. Biden, Xi attempt to calm tensions between U.S.
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