“On Tuesday, the Justice Department unsealed new charges against 10 Chinese intelligence officers and hackers who it says perpetrated a years-long scheme to steal trade secrets from aerospace companies. The case continues an impressive tempo from the Justice Department, as it continues to try curb China’s massive, wide-ranging, and long-running espionage campaign. In fact, it’s the third time since September alone that the US government has charged Chinese intelligence officers and spies, including one of its biggest coups in years: The extradition earlier this month of an alleged Chinese intelligence officer, caught in Europe, who will face a US courtroom.
That arrest marks the first time the US has prosecuted an officer of China’s Ministry of State Security. The feds believe that the suspect, Yanjun Xu, spent years cultivating a person he thought was a potential asset inside GE Aviation, which makes closely held jet engine technology. While historic, the GE Aviation case hardly stands as an outlier. Chinese espionage against the US has emerged over the past two decades as perhaps the most widespread, damaging, and pernicious national security threat facing the country—compromising trade secrets, American jobs, and human lives.”
Source: China’s Five Steps for Recruiting Spies in the US | WIRED