A Chinese professor accused of stealing trade secrets for Huawei Technologies Co (華為) would plead guilty to a reduced charge and be allowed to return to China, lawyers told a US judge on Thursday.
Bo Mao (毛波), a computer science professor at Xiamen University in China and a visiting professor at the University of Texas, would admit to a single count of making a false statement.
US prosecutors would dismiss more serious counts of conspiracy and trade-secrets theft, they said at a hearing at the US District Court for the Eastern District of New York.
The case, initiated last year, was part of a series of moves against Huawei by the the administration of US President Donald Trump, which has portrayed the Chinese telecom giant as a national security threat.
Mao was initially held without bail in a federal prison.
The plea is a setback in the government’s battle against what it alleges is trade-secret theft by Chinese technology companies.
Prosecutors initially accused Mao of stealing a computer chip on behalf of a Chinese telecommunications company while claiming to be doing academic research in 2016.
The government’s case against Mao mirrors allegations CNEX Labs Inc made in a civil suit in which Mao was accused of helping Huawei steal the technology.
The case is part of a broader crackdown by the US Department of Justice targeting Chinese scholars working at US university labs, some of whom have been accused of being “spies” or threats to national security even as they have been charged with more prosaic crimes, such as visa fraud.
Under an agreement with prosecutors, Mao would be sentenced to time served and allowed to return to China, his lawyer, Morris Fodeman, told US District Judge Pamela Chen.
Huawei was previously accused of violating US sanctions against Iran and North Korea, as well as engaging in a 20-year pattern of corporate espionage.
Huawei chief financial officer Meng Wanzhou (孟晚舟) was last year charged with fraud and is currently fighting extradition to the US from Canada.
Meng’s lawyers have argued in court that she did nothing wrong, while Huawei has pleaded not guilty and called the charges “unfounded and unfair.”
The US separately on Thursday announced a similar plea deal with a Chinese professor who admitted to making false statements in grant applications to the US National Institute of Health that concealed his affiliation to a university in China.
Zheng Songguo (鄭頌國), an immunologist at Ohio State University, was described by US prosecutors as having ties to China’s Thousand Talents Plan that the US says is designed to siphon intellectual property.
He was in May charged with making a false statement and fraud or bribery concerning programs receiving federal funds, an offense punishable by as long as 10 years in prison, and was in July ordered to be held without bail pending trial. The false statement charge he pleaded guilty to carries a maximum term of five years.
Real estate agent and property developer JSL Construction & Development Co (愛山林) led the average compensation rankings among companies listed on the Taiwan Stock Exchange (TWSE) last year, while contract chipmaker Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) finished 14th. JSL Construction paid its employees total average compensation of NT$4.78 million (US$159,701), down 13.5 percent from a year earlier, but still ahead of the most profitable listed tech giants, including TSMC, TWSE data showed. Last year, the average compensation (which includes salary, overtime, bonuses and allowances) paid by TSMC rose 21.6 percent to reach about NT$3.33 million, lifting its ranking by 10 notches
SEASONAL WEAKNESS: The combined revenue of the top 10 foundries fell 5.4%, but rush orders and China’s subsidies partially offset slowing demand Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) further solidified its dominance in the global wafer foundry business in the first quarter of this year, remaining far ahead of its closest rival, Samsung Electronics Co, TrendForce Corp (集邦科技) said yesterday. TSMC posted US$25.52 billion in sales in the January-to-March period, down 5 percent from the previous quarter, but its market share rose from 67.1 percent the previous quarter to 67.6 percent, TrendForce said in a report. While smartphone-related wafer shipments declined in the first quarter due to seasonal factors, solid demand for artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing (HPC) devices and urgent TV-related orders
Prices of gasoline and diesel products at domestic fuel stations are this week to rise NT$0.2 and NT$0.3 per liter respectively, after international crude oil prices increased last week, CPC Corp, Taiwan (台灣中油) and Formosa Petrochemical Corp (台塑石化) said yesterday. International crude oil prices last week snapped a two-week losing streak as the geopolitical situation between Russia and Ukraine turned increasingly tense, CPC said in a statement. News that some oil production facilities in Alberta, Canada, were shut down due to wildfires and that US-Iran nuclear talks made no progress also helped push oil prices to a significant weekly gain, Formosa said
MINERAL DIPLOMACY: The Chinese commerce ministry said it approved applications for the export of rare earths in a move that could help ease US-China trade tensions Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng (何立峰) is today to meet a US delegation for talks in the UK, Beijing announced on Saturday amid a fragile truce in the trade dispute between the two powers. He is to visit the UK from yesterday to Friday at the invitation of the British government, the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement. He and US representatives are to cochair the first meeting of the US-China economic and trade consultation mechanism, it said. US President Donald Trump on Friday announced that a new round of trade talks with China would start in London beginning today,
RSS