The FBI has nearly 1,000 investigations open into attempted intellectual property (IP) theft, nearly all of them involving Chinese, FBI Director Christopher Wray said on Tuesday.
“There is no country that poses a more severe counterintelligence threat to this country right now than China ... and I don’t say it lightly,” Wray told the US Senate Committee on the Judiciary.
“We have as we speak probably about a thousand-plus investigations all across the country involving attempted theft of US intellectual property, whether it’s economic espionage or counter proliferation, almost all leading back to China,” he said.
Photo: Bloomberg
“It is a threat that is deep and diverse and wide and vexing... Make no mistake that this is a high priority for all of us,” Wray added.
Arrests of people involved in Chinese operations to steal US corporate secrets, whether for corporate reasons or to obtain defense secrets, have risen sharply in the past few years.
Washington says the problem has been exacerbated by Beijing’s “Thousand Talents” program, which offers financial awards to Chinese professionals overseas who bring advanced technology back to China.
The concern has given rise to a tightening of visas for Chinese researchers seeking to travel to the US.
Last month, the US Department of Energy moved to block its scientists from participating in the “Thousand Talents” program to protect US competitive strengths and national security.
Wray said the Chinese government is using “not just government officials, but private sector entities, non-traditional collectors, etc, to steal their way up the economic ladder at our expense.”
“China is fighting a generational fight here,” he said.
“I want to be clear. This is not about the Chinese people as a whole and it is certainly not about Chinese-Americans in this country,” he added.
ISSUES: Gogoro has been struggling with ballooning losses and was recently embroiled in alleged subsidy fraud, using Chinese-made components instead of locally made parts Gogoro Inc (睿能創意), the nation’s biggest electric scooter maker, yesterday said that its chairman and CEO Horace Luke (陸學森) has resigned amid chronic losses and probes into the company’s alleged involvement in subsidy fraud. The board of directors nominated Reuntex Group (潤泰集團) general counsel Tamon Tseng (曾夢達) as the company’s new chairman, Gogoro said in a statement. Ruentex is Gogoro’s biggest stakeholder. Gogoro Taiwan general manager Henry Chiang (姜家煒) is to serve as acting CEO during the interim period, the statement said. Luke’s departure came as a bombshell yesterday. As a company founder, he has played a key role in pushing for the
China has claimed a breakthrough in developing homegrown chipmaking equipment, an important step in overcoming US sanctions designed to thwart Beijing’s semiconductor goals. State-linked organizations are advised to use a new laser-based immersion lithography machine with a resolution of 65 nanometers or better, the Chinese Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) said in an announcement this month. Although the note does not specify the supplier, the spec marks a significant step up from the previous most advanced indigenous equipment — developed by Shanghai Micro Electronics Equipment Group Co (SMEE, 上海微電子) — which stood at about 90 nanometers. MIIT’s claimed advances last
CROSS-STRAIT TENSIONS: The US company could switch orders from TSMC to alternative suppliers, but that would lower chip quality, CEO Jensen Huang said Nvidia Corp CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳), whose products have become the hottest commodity in the technology world, on Wednesday said that the scramble for a limited amount of supply has frustrated some customers and raised tensions. “The demand on it is so great, and everyone wants to be first and everyone wants to be most,” he told the audience at a Goldman Sachs Group Inc technology conference in San Francisco. “We probably have more emotional customers today. Deservedly so. It’s tense. We’re trying to do the best we can.” Huang’s company is experiencing strong demand for its latest generation of chips, called
GLOBAL ECONOMY: Policymakers have a choice of a small 25 basis-point cut or a bold cut of 50 basis points, which would help the labor market, but might reignite inflation The US Federal Reserve is gearing up to announce its first interest rate cut in more than four years on Wednesday, with policymakers expected to debate how big a move to make less than two months before the US presidential election. Senior officials at the US central bank including Fed Chairman Jerome Powell have in recent weeks indicated that a rate cut is coming this month, as inflation eases toward the bank’s long-term target of two percent, and the labor market continues to cool. The Fed, which has a dual mandate from the US Congress to act independently to ensure