Xiaoqing Zheng[1] worked at General Electric (GE) for 10 years from 2008 to 2018 serving as an engineer specializing in sealing technology. During his tenure at GE, Mr. Zheng had conspired with Zahoxi Zhang, a business partner from the PRC, to steal GE’s turbine technology and reproduce said technology in China for profit.
Economic Espionage
In 2021[1], Xiaorong You, a.k.a. Shannon You, was convicted for conspiracy to commit trade secret theft and economic espionage. Shannon was a former employee of the Cola-Cola company in Atlanta and then the Eastman Chemical Company in Kingsport.
Chinese national, Hao Zhang, was convicted of economic espionage and theft of trade secrets for his operations involving American companies Avago and Skyworks. From 2010 to 2015 he coordinated with co-conspirators from Tianjin University in China to take the IP from Avago and Skyworks and recreate the optoelectronics equipment for his own company domestically in China.
The semiconductor market is quite competitive and any advancement in technology could set you ahead of peers. This incentive drove employees from United Microelectronics Corporation, Inc. (UMC), a Taiwanese foundry company, to steal trade secrets from the American company Micron Technology, Inc. (Micron). In 2018, the FBI linked the representatives at UMC to the PRC’s state-owned semiconductor firm Fujian Jinhua.