Well, according to the US Department of Justice, China is behind 90% of espionage and industrial theft cases that it has handled over the past 7 years [1]
To use a less biased source [2], SCMP (which is a HK newspaper now owned by Jack Ma, founder of Alibaba) mentioned:
John Demers, assistant attorney general in the Justice Department’s national security division, said that by stealing trade secrets through computer intrusions and the co-opting of company insiders, China had “turned the tradecraft of its intelligence services against American companies”.
Between 2011 and 2018, Demers said, more than 90 per cent of his department’s cases alleging “economic espionage on behalf of a state” involved China. Among such cases are the recent prosecutions of Chinese national Xu Yanjun, suspected of trying to steal trade secrets from US and European aerospace companies, and 10 other Chinese intelligence agents suspected of similar offences.
“The playbook is simple,” Demers said. “Rob, replicate and replace.”
The indictments against the five charged Chinese citizens are not for espionage, they are for theft of trade secrets and associated IP law violations. The Chinese government, so far, has denied the allegations. This happens between countries, the French, for example, also have been known to use their intelligence agencies to steal information from other countries to help their domestic industries.
China is alleged to have done the same, so the US is upping the ante to try to get China to stop. This is just one more way countries do this to each other. Don't get sucked in by the click bait on this. This is pure economics between commercial competitors, and the use of government resources to steal IP to help their domestic industries, it's not anything else.
Not to mention the US's idiotic policy of allowing Chinese nationals to work in classified defense industries. Not only is China benefitting from their own massive defense spending, they are benefiting from a significant chunk of the USA's[1]. Presumably there are many more instances where this occurs that have not been caught.
I think the undercurrent that in implied is that there are countries like China who don't play by the normal rules of international espionage. Since they are so tightly coupled to Chinese industry they abuse their resources and power to feed domestic industry. To most people this seems very scummy.
Are there examples the other way? Where the US stole secrets and then handed them off to domestic companies? Maybe in defense? but otherwise?
I found it interesting that the espionage is largely aimed at the private sector and not the government:
> About 70 percent of China’s overall espionage is aimed at the U.S. private sector, rather than the government, said Joshua Skule, the head of the FBI’s intelligence division, which is charged with countering foreign espionage in the United States.
> “They are conducting economic espionage at a rate that is unparalleled in our history,” he said.
Governments spy on other nations businesses, then pass the information back to their companies who process to undercut the competition (because they have all the information)
'According to the indictment, five hackers “stole trade secrets” which allowed Chinese companies to undercut their American competitors, or gave them “insight into [their] strategy and vulnerabilities”. '
A history of espionage and theft of trade secrets demonstrates the necessity of concern.
"Xiaoqing Zheng who holds dual-citizenship in the United States and China, used elaborate and sophisticated methods to steal countless digital files containing trade secrets from General Electric regarding their wind turbine technology"
https://blog.twinstate.com/news/ge-trade-secrets-theft
"According to today’s conviction, Xu attempted to steal technology related to GE Aviation’s exclusive composite aircraft engine fan – which no other company in the world has been able to duplicate – to benefit the Chinese state."
https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdoh/pr/jury-convicts-chinese-o...
" A notable example is the 2014 lawsuit by T-Mobile, in which Huawei was accused of, among other conduct, sending an engineer to a T-Mobile facility to see "Tappy," the company's computer driven robot with a mechanical arm used to test smartphone screens to improve the reliability of its handsets. The engineer slipped one of the robot's fingertips into his laptop bag but was caught on camera"
https://www.mondaq.com/unitedstates/trade-secrets/1052104/th...
"A former associate scientist was sentenced to 24 months in federal prison in federal court today for stealing proprietary information worth more than $1 billion from his employer, a U.S. petroleum company."
https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/chinese-national-sentenced-st...
There are dozens of such visible cases. The vast majority of trade-secret theft is uncaught.
This should be an important topic of conversation in technology. Similar to other real threats to U.S. companies and citizens, Chinese espionage is the real deal.
It's unfortunate that Mr Xi was caught in the crossfire. But, it's not like he was held in prison without justice. In this case, the justice system worked itself out, and Xi was shown to be innocent. He was not, as far as I can tell from reading the article, deemed guilty until proven innocent. He was suspected of a crime, the evidence showed that he had not committed a crime, and the charges were dropped.
But, generally, I think the U.S. is much too lax in its patrolling of Chinese espionage. Things have been out of control for many years, at least for the couple decades that I've worked in research and development. Too often, at conferences and trade shows, have I seen the roving groups of Chinese with their video cameras and notebooks, blatantly stealing ideas and IP. Several times, I've witnessed suspicious Chinese citizens coming to work for tech companies, straight from China, being overly interested in details of IP, then mysteriously quitting, without a trace. It's a real problem.
Except China has required technology transfer and has been actively committing state sponsored industrial espionage for decades. Surely this isn’t news?
I’m down with China as a competitor, but we have a strong division between state and industry and China does not. I don’t think a unipolar world is a good idea, and I’m glad for a resurgent China. But it’s absurd to put on blinders and believe forced technology transfer and industrial espionage isn’t a cornerstone of their success.
At several megacorps seeking access to Chinese markets we were forced to transfer crucial trade secrets in exchange for access. We did our best to render it as useless as possible, but it was still very key stuff. Over two decades the Chinese government erected barrier after barrier even after complying to the point that the market access failed and competitors based on our technology dominated the domestic Chinese economy.
I see your parallel comments where you vigorously decry these statements as some sort of nationalism and anti Chinese sentiment. This isn’t that - this is simple historical fact, and I have had first hand experience with it and know the game being played from personal experience. I assumed this was all common knowledge given how much press it’s gotten over the last twenty years, which makes me wonder why you’re grinding this contrarian axe so hard?
Edit: I would note that this is fundamentally different from counterfeiting. This is capturing R&D directly at the top end of technology and processes through extortion and outright theft. I don’t actually blame China or Chinese people, it’s just a cultural difference in what’s acceptable and a belief that the state and industry are separate, which China doesn’t agree with. But the lesson to be learned is China doesn’t play by our rules, and we need to adapt to the situation better.
I think what people seem to be saying is that China is one of the only countries so blatantly using it for economic espionage against private corporations. This is fundamentally different than what other countries are rumored to be doing.
In China, there is no difference between international espionage and corporate espionage. Their Ministry of State Security has proved this again and again.
Stealing intellectual property from companies advances their military goals.
the airbus case you mention was a corruption investigation and was done in conjunction with german state intelligence, not industrial espionage. the belgian telecom hack you link was regular espionage. there is an actual difference between what china is doing and what the rest of us do.
I’m sure the US is still conducting industrial espionage, it’s less visible than openly stealing but in essence the same. You should expect to get robbed when producing in China or using US software.
China is responsible for the largest theft and transfer of wealth in the history of the world. They have stolen trade secrets, ignored IP and copied everything they possibly could and can all at the expense of Western Tax Payers who funded a century of research and development.
All Western companies with offices and factories in China have been compromised. From their financial records to trade secrets, all have been stolen by the Chinese.
In the late 90's my employer (leading technology company) implemented an IDS. We were stunned at the amount of internal attack activity aimed at our Accounting, HR and Research areas of the company all coming from our Chinese office and Factory. It had been completely infiltrated by Chinese military at every level.
China IS doing something about industrial espionage: they're supporting and encouraging it. This isn't dissimilar from what all the Western economies did with industrial espionage during the 1800's. In Rhode Island, we have the first mill in the US, known as Slater Mill, which was created by an industrial spy who stole secrets from England. The English were ahead in industry for textiles, coal mining, steam engines, steel, railroads, and all the other Europeans and Americans sent spies there to "tour" the factories or "apprentice" only to disappear just in time.
So, we shouldn't forget history and be shocked that the US is having its economic secrets stolen, as that's happened numerous times in the past.
To use a less biased source [2], SCMP (which is a HK newspaper now owned by Jack Ma, founder of Alibaba) mentioned:
John Demers, assistant attorney general in the Justice Department’s national security division, said that by stealing trade secrets through computer intrusions and the co-opting of company insiders, China had “turned the tradecraft of its intelligence services against American companies”.
Between 2011 and 2018, Demers said, more than 90 per cent of his department’s cases alleging “economic espionage on behalf of a state” involved China. Among such cases are the recent prosecutions of Chinese national Xu Yanjun, suspected of trying to steal trade secrets from US and European aerospace companies, and 10 other Chinese intelligence agents suspected of similar offences.
“The playbook is simple,” Demers said. “Rob, replicate and replace.”
[1] https://www.newsweek.com/china-involved-90-percent-economic-...
[2] https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/2177727/fb...
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