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China’s military
ChinaMilitary

Exclusive | Death penalty may await Sun Bo, boss of Chinese aircraft carrier firm CSIC, for alleged spying role

  • Details are unclear but signs point to deep trouble for Sun Bo over espionage claims
  • Beijing may want to use case as a warning to others, source says

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The first Chinese-built aircraft carrier, the Type 001A, leaves dock in Dalian, in northeastern Liaoning province. Photo: dfic
Minnie Chan

The disgraced deputy head of the state-owned firm developing China’s first home-grown aircraft carrier may face the death penalty over his alleged involvement in passing its secrets to foreign intelligence agents.

Sun Bo, former general manager of the China Shipbuilding Industry Corporation (CSIC), has already been found guilty by the country’s anti-corruption watchdog of taking bribes, but at least three sources familiar with the issue have said investigators were looking into allegations that he had passed on confidential information about the Liaoning, China’s first aircraft carrier.

It is unclear what level of confidential information about the Liaoning Sun may have given to foreign intelligence agents, but the sources said he “could even face the death penalty” or “at least a suspended death sentence”.

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One source close to the carrier project said: “It depends on the importance of the information Sun passed to the foreign agents.

“If it was highly confidential, then a death penalty is waiting for him.”

Another source close to the Chinese navy said the Beijing leadership may want to use Sun’s case as a “warning” to other senior officials amid President Xi Jinping’s ongoing anti-corruption campaign, which has ensnared more than 1.3 million party officials at various levels of government.

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