The Daring Ruse That Exposed China’s Campaign to Steal American Secrets

[Randy W]

The Daring Ruse That Exposed China’s Campaign to Steal American Secrets
How the downfall of one intelligence agent revealed the astonishing depth of Chinese industrial espionage.

from the NY Times (paywalled, unless you have free articles left)
an interesting read, but goes beyond my attention span

a free, sharable link (it's a lengthy article, and hard to otherwise summarize)
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/07/magazine/china-spying-intellectual-property.html?unlocked_article_code=CPWyv_bNh-wG7NhbVE-HKJuOZlYYdYDkuR3Obl-4TyPM1__XX0Rfpo8fKIhCqtPaeieEhjt6aiJ7HrB0sDijx0Cs-j36ZHq0cIvHw6iGBw8HOgUczl5DWEGsU1lxHhfctIFANO0BcbzeSyGPzJKPk1qkMASiPfILbzw6yBdWaOq3zb6l0b2r4NfxhyL3wRFBuQeCs7FBwiCObYH2j9YUqJWZMpaA-YuNNnXK7i8TDeoXSLQOEmtDLVu3NT6tttUF7wnftpvgQGZbGghcdFiTqcHpjVNr7jjaZ828OYjx5OlLLkq79BBR6IoghBnUn9mJ3g7bQTx5smKttTNfMTqvOIelZai1BpjM21bjAiM&smid=url-share

Quote

 

Hua had always desired academic recognition. “When I did my Ph.D., I initially wanted to be a professor in China or in the United States,” he says. But because his studies were focused more on practical applications than pure research, a career in industry made more sense than one in academia. At G.E. Aviation, he was part of a group that designed containment cases for the rotating fan blades of jet engines. The use of carbon-based composites in fan blades and their casings, instead of metal, means lighter engines and a commercial advantage.

“I felt honored to be invited to give a talk,” Hua says. Being recognized back home was especially fulfilling for Hua, who grew up poor in a small village and was the only child there from his generation to go to college. Beyond the prestige, the invitation also provided a free trip to China to see his friends and family. Hua arranged to arrive in May, so he could attend a nephew’s wedding and his college reunion at Harbin Institute of Technology. There was one problem, though: Hua knew that G.E. would deny permission to give the talk if he asked, which he was supposed to do. “Since G.E. is a high-tech company, it is difficult to get approval even to present at conferences in the United States,” he says. The company was concerned about giving away proprietary information.

Hua made it clear to Chen that he would be able to discuss only research on composite materials generally, without going into the specifics of what he did at G.E. Aviation. To prepare, Hua told me, he went back over the work he had done for his doctorate and gathered additional information from scientific papers. He also downloaded a few G.E. training files onto his laptop. These contained instructions from G.E. experts on using composites; Hua thought they would help him save time when putting together his presentation, which he planned to do on his flight.

 

 

Edited March 9, 2023 by Randy W (see edit history)