Spying on the US is a service to China, state-run media said on Wednesday, singing the praises of a man who confessed to hacking US defense contractors on Beijing’s behalf.
Chinese national Su Bin (蘇斌), 50, pleaded guilty to stealing trade secrets from the companies, including plans for transport planes and fighter jets.
In a plea agreement filed on Wednesday, he admitted to conspiring with two unnamed people in China to try to acquire plans for F-22 and F-35 jets and C-17 transport aircraft.
US airplane manufacturer Boeing was among the companies hacked.
If he had done so, “we are willing to show our gratitude and respect for his service to our country,” said an editorial in the Global Times, a newspaper with close ties to the Chinese Communist Party.
“On the secret battlefield without gunpowder, China needs special agents to gather secrets from the US,” it added.
It also questioned whether the plea agreement reflected the truth of the matter, saying that while the US has arrested “quite a few ‘Chinese spies’ ... most of them proved to be innocent.”
“As the ‘war of information’ between China and the US continues, there will probably be more Chinese framed as spies,” the newspaper said.
Washington and Beijing have repeatedly clashed over what the US describes as rampant cyberspying by the Chinese government on US industry.
Last year, the US indicted five Chinese military officers on charges of cyberespionage.
In the 1990s, Taiwanese-
American Lee Wen-ho (李文和) was accused of spying for the Chinese government, but eventually pleaded guilty to only one minor charge in an embarrassing debacle that ended in an apology from then-US president Bill Clinton.
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