Chinese Engineer Gets 8 Years In U.S. Prison For Spying

A former graduate student in Chicago was sentenced to eight years in prison for spying for the Chinese government by gathering information on engineers and scientists in the United States, Nectar Gan reported for CNN.

Photo Insert: 31-year-old Ji Chaoqun was convicted last September of acting illegally as an agent of China’s Ministry of State Security (MSS) and of making a materially false statement to the US Army.

Ji Chaoqun, a Chinese national who came to the US to study electrical engineering at the Illinois Institute of Technology in 2013 and later enlisted in the US Army Reserves, was arrested in 2018.

The 31-year-old was convicted last September of acting illegally as an agent of China’s Ministry of State Security (MSS) and of making a materially false statement to the US Army.

Ji was tasked with providing an intelligence officer with biographical information on individuals for potential recruitment as Chinese spies, including Chinese nationals who were working as engineers and scientists in the US.

Ji’s spying was part of an effort by Chinese intelligence to obtain access to advanced aerospace and satellite technologies being developed by US companies.

In 2016, a year after graduation, Ji enlisted in the US Army Reserves under a program in which foreign nationals can be recruited if their skills are considered “vital to the national interest.”

In his application to join the program, Ji falsely stated that he had not had any contact with a foreign government within the past seven years.

He also failed to disclose his relationship and contacts with Chinese intelligence officers in a subsequent interview with a US Army officer, according to the Justice Department. Ji was working at the direction of Xu Yanjun, a deputy division director at the Jiangsu provincial branch of the MMS, the statement said.

Xu, a career intelligence officer, was sentenced last year to 20 years in prison for plotting to steal trade secrets from several US aviation and aerospace companies. Xu was also the first Chinese spy extradited to the US for trial, after being detained in Belgium in 2018 following an FBI investigation.

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