Chinese engineer Ji Chaoqun gets 8-year sentence in US for spying
- He was accused of identifying American scientists and engineers that could be recruited by a Chinese intelligence unit
- The case was apparently linked to Chinese efforts over to steal trade secrets from aviation companies, including US military suppliers.
A Chinese engineer was sentenced to eight years in a US prison Wednesday for providing Beijing with information on possible recruitment targets.
Ji Chaoqun, who came to the US on a student visa in 2013 and later enlisted in the army reserves, was accused of identifying American scientists and engineers that could be recruited by the Jiangsu Province Ministry of State Security.
The body is a key Chinese intelligence unit involved in numerous schemes to illegally obtain US industrial and trade secrets.
Ji was arrested in September 2018 on charges that he had supplied Chinese intelligence with biographical information about eight people, all naturalised American citizens originally from China or Taiwan, and some of whom were US defence contractors.
Ji, about 31, was convicted in September of illegally acting as an agent of a foreign government and of making false statements after a two-week trial in Chicago.