Ignatius: New help to stop China’s theft of U.S. trade secrets

U.S. intelligence agencies are more open to helping find and prosecute Chinese hackers and spies.

By David Ignatius

While the bombastic U.S.-China “trade war” has been getting the headlines, U.S. intelligence and law-enforcement agencies have been waging a quieter battle to combat Chinese theft of trade secrets from American companies, a practice so widespread that even China trade boosters regard it as egregious.

The Trump administration’s much-ballyhooed campaign of tariffs will eventually produce some version of a truce; economists say that any other result would amount to a mutual suicide pact. But the battle against Beijing’s economic espionage is still accelerating, and it may prove more important over time in leveling the playing field between the two countries.

To combat Chinese spying and hacking, U.S. intelligence agencies are increasingly sharing with the Justice Department revelatory information about Chinese operations. That has led to a string of recent indictments, and in one case, the arrest abroad of an alleged Chinese spy and his extradition to America to face trial.

The indictments don’t just charge violations of law, they expose details of Chinese spycraft. And there’s a hidden threat: The Chinese must consider whether the U.S. has blown the covers, not just of the people and organizations named in the criminal charges, but others with whom they came in contact.

This law-enforcement approach to counterespionage requires public disclosure of sensitive information, something that intelligence agencies often resist. But it seems to be an emerging U.S. strategy. The Justice Department has pursued a similar open assault on Russian cyber-espionage, with three recent indictments naming a score of Russian operatives and disclosing their hacking techniques, malware tools and planned targets.

China, like Russia, is displaying an increasingly freewheeling and entrepreneurial approach to espionage. Several indictments unsealed since September reveal how the Ministry of State Security, the Chinese spy service, has operated through its regional bureaus — in this case the Jiangsu provincial office of the MSS — to obtain precious U.S. technology.

The indictments allege that from 2010 to 2015, the Jiangsu branch ran a team of nine hackers who tried to steal U.S. techniques for making jet engines. This is a subtle and highly valuable aspect of aerospace technology, one of the few that China hasn’t yet mastered or stolen, and the Chinese evidently wanted to obtain by stealth what they couldn’t produce on their own.

“The concerted effort to steal, rather than simply purchase, commercially available products should offend every company that invests talent, energy and shareholder money into the development of products,” said Adam Braverman, the U.S. attorney in San Diego who helped prosecute the cases.

The San Diego indictment lists the hacker names used by the alleged conspirators, handles such as “Cobain,” “sxpdlcl,” and “mer4en7y.” A separate indictment charged an MSS officer named Yanjun Xu, a deputy division director in the Jiangsu bureau, with trying to steal jet-engine secrets from GE Aviation; Xu was arrested last April in Belgium after he began trying to penetrate the company’s operations, and he was extradited to the U.S. last month. The U.S. in September arrested a U.S. Army reservist named Ji Chaoqun and charged that he had helped the Chinese gain information about aerospace industry targets.

This month, the Justice Department also unsealed a September indictment that accused a Chinese company and its Taiwanese partner, both funded by the Chinese government, of trying to steal eight trade secrets for a memory-chip technology known as “DRAM” from Micron Technology Inc., based in Silicon Valley. The indictment notes that the Chinese government had identified DRAM as “a national economic priority” that Beijing was determined to obtain.

The indictment, brought by the U.S. attorney in San Jose, uses blunt language to describe the alleged plot: “In order to develop DRAM technology and production capabilities without investing years of research and development and the expenditure of many millions of dollars,” the defendants “conspired to circumvent Micron’s restrictions on its proprietary technology.”

What gives these indictments extra bite is that President Xi Jinping had promised back in 2015 that China wouldn’t conduct economic cyberespionage anymore. That pledge followed an indictment the previous year that revealed an elaborate plot by Chinese military hackers to steal U.S. commercial secrets.

But in the espionage world, promises not to spy are dubious, at best. Over the last three years, the Justice Department has charged former CIA officer Jerry Chun Shing Lee and five other Americans for stealing secrets on behalf of Beijing.

As a rising power, China is also a rising threat in the intelligence sphere. The U.S. counterattack, in part, seems to be a public revelation of just how and why Beijing is stealing America’s secrets, overt payback for covert espionage.

Follow David Ignatius on Twitter @IgnatiusPost.

Talk to us

> Give us your news tips.

> Send us a letter to the editor.

> More Herald contact information.

More in Opinion

RGB version
Editorial cartoons for Monday, March 18

A sketchy look at the news of the day.… Continue reading

Carson gets a chance to sound the horn in an Everett Fire Department engine with the help of captain Jason Brock during a surprise Make-A-Wish sendoff Saturday, Oct. 21, 2023, at Thornton A. Sullivan Park in Everett, Washington. (Ryan Berry / The Herald)
Editorial: Everett voters will set course for city finances

This fall and in coming years, they will be asked how to fund and support the services they use.

Devotees of TikTok, Mona Swain, center, and her sister, Rachel Swain, right, both of Atlanta, monitor voting at the Capitol in Washington, as the House passed a bill that would lead to a nationwide ban of the popular video app if its China-based owner doesn't sell, Wednesday, March 13, 2024. Lawmakers contend the app's owner, ByteDance, is beholden to the Chinese government, which could demand access to the data of TikTok's consumers in the U.S. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
Editorial: Forced sale of TikTok ignores network of problems

The removal of a Chinese company would still leave concerns for data privacy and the content on apps.

Rep. Strom Peterson, D-Edmonds, watches the State of the State speech by Gov. Jay Inslee on the second day of the legislative session at the Washington state Capitol, Tuesday, Jan. 9, 2024, in Olympia, Wash. (AP Photo/Lindsey Wasson)
Editorial: Legislature has its own production of ‘The Holdovers’

What state lawmakers left behind in good ideas that should get more attention and passage next year.

Comment: Measles outbreaks show importance of MMR vaccinations

The highly contagious disease requires a 95 percent vaccination rate to limit the spread of outbreaks.

Harrop: Should ‘affordable’ come at cost of quality of living?

As states push their cities to ignore zoning rules, the YIMBYs are covering for developers.

Saunders: Classified document cases show degrees of guilt

President Biden’s age might protect him, but the special prosecutor didn’t exonerate him either.

Comment: Clearing the internet of misinformation, deep fakes

With social networks’ spotty moderation record, users need to identify and call out problems they see.

Eco-Nomics: Price of gas, fossil fuels higher than you think

Greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuels force unseen costs in climate disasters, illness and more.

Vote against I-2117 to keep best tool to protect climate

We voters will be offered the opportunity to repeal Washington state’s Climate… Continue reading

Lack of maternal health care raises risks of deadly sepsis

In today’s contentious climate, we often hear political debates about maternal health… Continue reading

Trump’s stance on abortion isn’t moderate; it’s dangerous

Voters deserve to know the facts and the truth about what will… Continue reading

Support local journalism

If you value local news, make a gift now to support the trusted journalism you get in The Daily Herald. Donations processed in this system are not tax deductible.