Several of the six Chinese scientists who were charged with economic espionage by the US this week are young stars in their fields, and any government ties they have are rooted in their work with a university vying to be a major force in microchip engineering and sales, according to online documents and an interview with a colleague.
The indictments announced by the US Department of Justice on Tuesday were widely reported in the Chinese media, and they surprised many people in China, especially those who know the six accused men.
Zhang Hao (張浩), 36, who was arrested on Saturday last week after he landed at Los Angeles International Airport on his way to a conference, is known for “being such a high achiever at such a young age,” said Li Xinghua (李杏華), an engineering professor at Tianjin University, a state-run institution where Zhang and at least two other defendants also work.
Illustration: June Hsu
“I was very shocked by the unthinkable news of his arrest,” Li said. “Everyone is talking about it.”
Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Hong Lei (洪磊) said Beijing is trying to get more information about the case.
“The Chinese government expresses its serious concern,” Hong said at a news conference in Beijing, adding that it “will ensure that the legitimate interests and rights of Chinese personnel involved in China-US exchanges are effectively protected.”
The Chinese Communist Party has for decades had a broad policy of trying to get technology from overseas companies and institutions, often with the help of Chinese scientists and researchers who have traveled abroad, according to US officials, scholars and information from previous court cases in the US. Chinese universities and research organizations are often involved in such attempts. Foreign analysts said the US chip industry has recently been one focus of Chinese espionage efforts.
US federal prosecutors indicted the six men under an infrequently used provision of the Economic Espionage Act that covers actions for the benefit of a foreign government. Only about a dozen such cases have been prosecuted in the US in the past 20 years.
The prosecutors allege the six defendants took cellphone chip technology from two small US companies where they worked, returned to Tianjin University, created a partnership company with the university and then manufactured and sold the chips to the Chinese military and commercial customers.
At least three of the six men teach at the university. However, Fudan University institute of international studies associate dean Shen Dingli (沈丁立) said that their affiliation with the school did not mean the men had the direct support of the central government, or were working for the government’s benefit.
“I’m a professor at a university, but any stealing that I might do has nothing to do with the Chinese government,” Shen said.
Some analysts have also questioned whether the Chinese government had anything to do with other cases of alleged industrial theft by Chinese hackers. Last year, the US Department of Justice indicted five men in the Chinese army, accusing them of hacking into the computers of US companies to steal commercial secrets. However, it is rarely obvious for whom such hackers are working — for the military, another government agency, a state-owned enterprise, a private company or themselves, according to cybersecurity experts in China, where a freelance culture of hacking and economic espionage is common.
Zhang, one of the accused scientists, is listed in the staff directory of Tianjin University’s school of precision instrument and opto-electronics engineering.
Li, Zhang’s colleague, said Zhang had the remarkable achievement of becoming a professor before he turned 30 and was “the star of our department.”
“Professor Zhang Hao is a very nice person, loved by his students,” Li said. “He works extremely hard and is very smart and capable.”
In September 2011, Zhang co-founded a company, ROFS Microsystem, whose Web site says its “core team has PhDs from the US and more than 10 years work experience at famous semiconductor companies overseas.”
A government environmental approval paper issued in 2012 said the company was investing about US$40 million to build a production line for micro-electro-mechanical systems chips in Tianjin. The line would be able to produce 648 million chips per year, the paper said. The company’s Web site does not list any government clients.
The ROFS Web site also does not mention any ties to Tianjin University, however, an online job advertisement from the company’s early days said its office was on the university campus. In 2012, the company moved to a high-tech zone in the city that, according to an official Web site, also serves as the “Tianjin University micro- and nanotechnology industry base.” The university’s president and the deputy director of the technology commission of Tianjin municipality’s communist party committee both appeared at the launch ceremony.
In China, universities often operate companies that seek to profit from the research and inventions of faculty members. Sometimes those companies also become enmeshed with the Chinese Communist Party and the government. One example is Tsinghua Holdings, a highly connected company that once counted the son of former Chinese president Hu Jintao (胡錦濤) as its communist party committee secretary. The company, which oversees companies spun off from Tsinghua University, has a subsidiary considered by analysts to be China’s new national leader in chip technology.
For Tianjin University, an equivalent company is Tianjin Micro Nano Manufacturing, an investor in ROFS Microsystem.
Tianjin Micro Nano Manufacturing’s Web site says one goal is “to smash the monopoly positions of foreign companies” in its industry and to help develop China’s supply chain for high-precision electronic components.
The company is also listed on a number of government Web sites as an example of the success of China’s indigenous innovation policies, which aim to foster a domestic technology industry and wean China off foreign technology.
The Department of Justice indictment alleges Zhang and Tianjin University engineering department professor Pang Wei (龐慰) both applied for patents based on technology from the US.
Pang, 35, was a founding investor in ROFS Microsystem, according to an online regulatory filing.
Chen Jinping (陳金平), one of the six men charged and a member of the board of ROFS, also teaches at the same Tianjin University engineering school as Zhang and Pang.
Professor Shen said that it was normal for countries to try to steal information from one another, and that there had been an unspoken rule among nations to stay quiet about this mutual espionage. However the US appears to be taking a new route, he said.
“Snowden has given ample evidence of the US stealing information from China, but China has never hyped that,” Shen said, referring to former US National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden.
“The US always likes to make a fuss, but China’s attitude is more mature on this issue,” Shen said.
Additional reporting by Paul Mozur
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