U.S. crackdown on sensitive technology leaks ensnares more Chinese nationals — and Huawei, yet again
Washington disclosed charges against more than a dozen Chinese nationals in three separate espionage cases, including two people who allegedly offered bribes for insider information on the lawsuit against Huawei.
The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) has revealed three cases against Chinese nationals, one of which accuses two suspects of attempting to obstruct a criminal investigation by bribing a source for inside information about the high-profile lawsuit against Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei.
Two defendants, Hè Guóchūn 贺国春 and Wángzhèng 王政 (characters per the DOJ’s Chinese language statement), were charged with obstruction of justice in federal court in New York for allegedly offering $61,000 in bitcoin, as well as cash and jewels, to an unidentified U.S. government employee working as a double agent in order to gather information about an ongoing criminal investigation.
- Though Huawei is not explicitly mentioned in the court filings, the details indicate that the unnamed company, referred to as “Company-1,” is a “global telecommunications company headquartered in the PRC” and is a “defendant in a pending prosecution” in New York — matching the details in court filings against Huawei.
- He and Wang were also accused of seeking information on company employees that were interviewed by the U.S. government, as well as prosecutors’ trial strategy, evidence, and witness list.
The DOJ also disclosed two separate cases that involved Chinese nationals, each of which “lays bare the Chinese government’s flagrant violation of international laws, as they work to project their authoritarian view around the world,” FBI director Christopher Wray said in a press statement.
- Two Chinese citizens were arrested and five were charged in New York for harassing a Chinese-born U.S. resident living in America to return to China, as part of a wider campaign by Beijing to repatriate fugitives known as Operation Fox Hunt — a program that some have accused of unjustly targeting Chinese dissidents.
- Four Chinese nationals were charged in New Jersey for conspiring to act as illegal agents on behalf of the PRC by using an academic institute as a cover to try to obtain sensitive technology and information.
- Although two of the 13 people charged were arrested, many or all of the rest appear to be overseas and may never be tried in the U.S.
- “The government of China sought to interfere with the rights and freedoms of individuals in the United States and to undermine our judicial system that protects those rights,” U.S. Attorney General Merrick B. Garland said in a press statement.
When asked about Garland’s comment, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wāng Wénbīn 汪文斌 said at a press conference that China “always asks overseas Chinese citizens to comply with the host countries’ laws and regulations,” while accusing some U.S. officials of seeking to “suppress Chinese companies, openly provide shelter for Chinese fugitives, and obstruct and undermine China’s efforts to repatriate fugitives and recover illegal proceeds.”
- In May, U.S. federal prosecutors accused five individuals of intimidating and harassing Chinese dissidents living in the United States, including a congressional candidate from New York.
The case comes amid a crackdown by Washington on sensitive technology to China, with Huawei once again at the center of the geopolitical storm: The Biden administration recently unveiled a sweeping set of export controls that severely limit China’s access to computer chips and the things that make them, a move that will “kneecap” the nation’s push to develop advanced technologies at home.
- The severe export controls were an extension of the “foreign direct product rule” initially tested out on Huawei during the Trump administration — and later used against Russia after its invasion of Ukraine.
- Although Huawei was put on the U.S. “Entity List” in May 2019, the ban was extended under the Trump administration in 2020 to cover all semiconductor sales to Huawei.
- Mèng Wǎnzhōu 孟晚舟, Huawei’s chief financial officer, was charged in 2019 with bank and wire fraud, and later detained in Canada before her high-profile release under a deal with the U.S. government.
- “Attacking Huawei will not help the U.S. stay ahead of the competition,” the company said in a statement published in 2020.
More on the new U.S. semiconductor export controls from industry veteran Paul Triolo in this piece published on The China Project today: Your phones and cars aren’t going to work the same after new U.S. rules on selling chips to China.
