Chinese professor in US convicted of stealing tech secrets, economic espionage

Zhang Hao was accused of conspiring with a colleague from the University of Southern California to steal and sell US secrets to the Chinese government and military

He was charged during a crackdown on Chinese theft of intellectual property that began under former President Barack Obama has continued under the Trump administration

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The University of Southern California in Los Angeles, California. File photo: AFP

Published: 9:19am, 27 Jun 2020Updated: 8:26pm, 27 Jun 2020

A Chinese professor in the United States was found guilty by a judge of stealing trade secrets and an even more serious and rarer charge of economic espionage, marking the latest conviction in the Trump administration’s pursuit of Chinese scientists and engineers.

At an unusual in-person courtroom hearing on Friday during the coronavirus pandemic, a federal judge in San Jose, California, announced the verdict against Zhang Hao.

Arrested in 2015 when he flew to Los Angeles for a conference, Zhang was accused of conspiring with a colleague from the University of Southern California to steal and sell American secrets to the China government and military through a shell company in the Cayman Islands.

Zhang was charged during an aggressive US crackdown on Chinese theft of intellectual property that began under former President Barack Obama has continued under the Trump administration, which has applied heavy scrutiny to Chinese scientists doing research in the US He faces up to 15 years in prison for economic espionage and 10 years for theft of trade secrets, according to a court filing.

Friday’s verdict comes amid worsening ties between the world’s two biggest economies. Despite meetings that US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo held with his Chinese counterpart in Hawaii last week, relations remain soured over issues from China’s handling of the coronavirus to its move to enact legislation restricting Hong Kong and its treatment of ethnic minorities in Xinjiang province.

He filed patent applications using the stolen secrets and listing himself as the inventor

Judge Edward Davila

The Pentagon this week published a list of 20 Chinese companies it said were owned or controlled by China’s military, potentially exposing them to further sanctions in the US

On Thursday, the US won an arrest warrant for the former president of China’s state-owned chip maker as part of the Trump administration’s “China Initiative” targeting trade-secret theft, hacking and economic espionage.

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