Xiaoqing Zheng (Zheng Xiaoqing)

Xiaoqing Zheng (Zheng Xiaoqing)

Biography

2023: Sentence - 2 years in prison for industrial espionage

On January 3, 2023, a former General Electric (GE) employee was sentenced to two years in prison for conspiracy to commit economic espionage.

The decision in the case of 59-year-old Zheng Xiaoqing was made by the US Federal Court in New York. The case file says that the defendant, while working at GE, specialized in turbine manufacturing technologies. Xiaoqing was convicted along with Zhaoxi Zhang, a businessman from China's Liaoning province, for a plan to "steal millions of dollars in GE trade secrets." The investigation, in particular, showed that Xiaoqing and other persons in China conspired to steal commercial secrets related to ground and aircraft turbine technologies in favor of the PRC.

Zheng took advantage of trust, betrayed his employer, and conspired with the Chinese government to steal innovative American technology. The US Department of Justice will prosecute those who threaten our national security by condoning the theft of valuable trade secrets on behalf of a foreign power, the US department notes.

Stolen trade secrets may have made their way to "Chinese companies and universities that research, develop and manufacture turbine parts," it says. The US Department of Justice also emphasizes that Xiaoqing was a participant in the so-called Thousand Talents Plan, a special program established by the Chinese central government to hire leading international experts in research and innovation. Since the 1990s, U.S. prosecutors have charged nearly 700 people with espionage, intellectual property theft, illegal exports of military technology and other crimes related to China, it said. Two-thirds of the cases ended in convictions.^[1]

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