On April 1, 2018, Xu Yanjun, also known as Qu Hui, was arrested by Belgian authorities. Three days later the United States filed a sealed criminal indictment in the United States District Court in Southern Ohio.
The complaint was based on a March criminal complaint in the same district court aimed at Xu and an unnamed co-conspirator. The case appears to closely parallel the case of Ji Chaoqun, a Chinese national arrested a month earlier, in September 2018.
Ji worked at the direction of a high-level intelligence officer in the Jiangsu Province Ministry of State Security, a provincial department of the Ministry of State Security for the People’s Republic of China. Ji is charged with recruiting top American engineers from American defense companies who were either of Taiwanese or Chinese birth.
According to the US attorney’s office, Xu was lured to Belgium where he was arrested and then extradited to the United States where he has been charged in Federal court.
Xu is most likely the high-level Chinese intelligence official involved in the Ji case. According to the US Attorney’s office, Xu was the Deputy Director of the 6th Bureau of the Jiangsu Province division of the Ministry of State Security of China.
While Ji was indicted in Chicago, where he lived, Xu was charged in the southern Ohio Federal district, the home of one of the three companies he allegedly operated against for purposes of economic espionage.
That company, though not named in the complaint, was General Electric, and General Electric’s Aviation Division is located in Evandale, Ohio, approximately 25 kilometers, or 15.7 miles, from Cincinnati.
The other two companies have not been revealed and are listed only as Victim 2 and Victim 3. Victim 2 appears to be Boeing, and it is likely Victim 3 is Honeywell Aerospace – but the names of victims 2 and 3 are not confirmed.
As far as the criminal charges against Xu are concerned, they only apply to Victim 1, General Electric Aerospace.
General Electric is the sole global company that has developed composite materials for jet engine fan blades and encasements. This is an important commercial and military technology. General Electric manufactures its composite fan blades in a joint venture in Texas with France’s Snecma (Safran).
This is not the first partnership between GE and Snecma. In 1974, GE and Snecma formed the jet engine partnership, CFM International. The venture has produced more than 36,000 jet engines, primarily for the commercial market, but a military version, known as the F-108, is in use in re-engined KC-136 refueling tankers and the E6B Mercury “Doomsday” airborne command post.
The composite fan blade joint venture is known as CFAN and was founded in 1991. It manufactures wide-chord composite fan blades and encasements in San Marcos, Texas. Its products are being used on the Boeing 777, the Boeing 747, the composite-based Boeing 787 and the Embraer Lineage 1000.
More importantly, it is the only company in the world today manufacturing composite fan blades and it is expanding into other engine areas, such as advanced fibers including carbon, Kevlar and fiberglass; thermoset resins including epoxy, BMI and PMR15; and bonded structures containing metallic or composite honeycomb.
CFAN also developed expertise and has capabilities in Resin Transfer Molding for aerospace engine applications.
There are many advantages to using composites for fan blades if the technology can be mastered. Composites are significantly lighter than metal fan blades and help improve engine efficiency, fuel savings and range. They also allow the case surrounding the fan to be made from composites rather than heavier metal, because a composite case can successfully contain a broken fan blade if it detaches.
The GE fan blades have been extensively tested against bird strikes, hail and FOD, or foreign object damage on jet runways, the same that destroyed Concord Flight 4590 in 2000.
Since the early 1980s when China bought four commercial jet engines from the United States – legally – and tried to reverse engineer them, China has been seeking to close a major gap in its jet engine manufacturing capabilities, seeking information on key engine technology including jet “hot section” know-how and, in the Xu Yanjun case, composite fan blades.
So far, China has fallen short: it still depends on Russia for military jet engines and on foreign commercial companies for passenger and transport jets, some of which end up on military aircraft.
NASA believes that the use of advanced composite for engine fan blades is an important technology for a new type of jet engine called the Exo-Skeletal Engine (ESE). The ESE has commercial and military applications, especially in reducing the number of jet engine parts, including applications for commercial and military hypersonic aircraft.
Xu and his Chinese interlocutors wanted to gain as much information as possible from an unnamed GE engineer who they attempted to recruit or actually recruited.
These efforts ran from 2013 until this year – a five-year timeline that involved multiple trips by the engineer to China, transfers of information and attempts to have the engineer even download the file index from his company computer.
It is not clear who the engineer is, what his exact role was, and how, or if, he cooperated with the FBI and other government agents. It is known, by reading the complaint, that the US government was able to intercept many of Xu’s messages, even though he used different names on them and different messaging tools, including email.
The other two victim companies receive far less attention in the complaint, but they are big players in aerospace and high technology.
Boeing manufactures commercial jets and a wide variety of military products including aircraft – for example the F-15 and F-18 – military helicopters including gunships and both the B1-B bomber and the new Next Generation strategic bomber program, just getting underway and of critical significance to China.
Honeywell produces jet engines and many other aerospace products, but it is also involved in diesel engine variable nozzle turbocharging, which could have been one of the Chinese targets. Honeywell believes this is an important technology for diesel engines that provides many benefits including reduced emissions and saving fuel.
Whether it was China’s aim to get more access to Honeywell’s technology will only become clear if the government reveals more about Chinese targets.
What is important beyond the technology put at risk in this instance is that China continues to mount a sustained and powerful effort to gain access to American commercial and defense technology.
For years the US government sat on its hands and did very little about the problem, believing – wrongly – that China was far behind the United States and would not be able to use what they stole; and also afraid that interdicting China’s technology acquisition effort would undermine trade deals.
Today the US seems to have started to behave as if there really is a threat and the hemorrhage of technology needs to be stopped. Washington still has a very long way to go to block China’s programs that use every kind of known attack on the US technology base ranging from spies to cyber attacks.
It faces some formidable obstacles: badly compromised cyber computer systems and networks and weak and ineffective export controls. Whether the Trump administration will continue its new initiatives and make a stronger effort than a few indictments remains to be seen.
For years CHINA did NOT respond USA spying efforts …China should revamp and manage better and with hi-tech gagets to counter West + USA spying rings !!.
For years CHINA did NOT respond USA spying efforts …China should revamp and manage better and with hi-tech gagets to counter West + USA spying rings !!.
Stephen bryens nonsense reverie and propaganda. What total bullshit he speaks about China. China has all the assistance that Russia provides it with so many technologies with no strings attached. Perhaps Stephen bryen should write about the new and improved RQ-170 ‘Sentinel’ that Iran has been manufacturing and now using over Syria as a UCAV. Now that is a technological coup!
Stephen bryens nonsense reverie and propaganda. What total bullshit he speaks about China. China has all the assistance that Russia provides it with so many technologies with no strings attached. Perhaps Stephen bryen should write about the new and improved RQ-170 ‘Sentinel’ that Iran has been manufacturing and now using over Syria as a UCAV. Now that is a technological coup!
Everything was downloadable from the Internet when Americans boast they were a open knowledge society. Now they face a little bit of competition and got all phreaking scared and clammed up. hahahahha…Wonder how long they use prison labor. Wait already using.it. How long they start censoring postings aka crybaby free speech. oh wait… fb already doing it. hahahaha
Everything was downloadable from the Internet when Americans boast they were a open knowledge society. Now they face a little bit of competition and got all phreaking scared and clammed up. hahahahha…Wonder how long they use prison labor. Wait already using.it. How long they start censoring postings aka crybaby free speech. oh wait… fb already doing it. hahahaha
Discovering a spy is a golden opportunity to use against the spying country. The spy can be fed false information and the entire network can be compromised. The LAST thing you want to do is to publicize the discovery. There no value in proclaiming loudly, "We caught a spy!" That is throwing away a valuable asset. The ONLY reason to do so it to support a propaganda campaign against the spying country. That is what is happening here.
Discovering a spy is a golden opportunity to use against the spying country. The spy can be fed false information and the entire network can be compromised. The LAST thing you want to do is to publicize the discovery. There no value in proclaiming loudly, "We caught a spy!" That is throwing away a valuable asset. The ONLY reason to do so it to support a propaganda campaign against the spying country. That is what is happening here.
And Americans would be so righteous to never sell blood for money. wait…http://www.worldstopexports.com/top-blood-exporters-by-country/
hahahah
And Americans would be so righteous to never sell blood for money. wait…http://www.worldstopexports.com/top-blood-exporters-by-country/
hahahah
The Presidency of a LEADER with smarts, BALLS and a vision——–Donald John Trump.You think this arrest of the Chinese spy would have happened under the 44th President of the United States——Barack Hussein Obama——the answer is real simple—— NO!!
The Presidency of a LEADER with smarts, BALLS and a vision——–Donald John Trump.You think this arrest of the Chinese spy would have happened under the 44th President of the United States——Barack Hussein Obama——the answer is real simple—— NO!!
Whenever the American falls behind the Chinese, they arrest some Chinese for stealing and spying their technology. It seems the American is falling behind Chinese in jet engine technology.
Whenever the American falls behind the Chinese, they arrest some Chinese for stealing and spying their technology. It seems the American is falling behind Chinese in jet engine technology.
In a decade or so China would eclipse the US in military technology. This is not a hope or wishful thinking but a reality. Russia already has nullified any advantage the US had over it with its ABM systems, once Putin fielded the hypersonic weapon lineup…..lol…. The Su-50’s 117 engine is coming along well and it will power the first batch of the stealth warplanes. Iran has a UCAV industry even more advanced than that of Russia and China. China is fielding the J-20 and soon the J-31 and the H-20’s……lol…..all three countries in the troika share military tech and experience…… Good luck to trump in trying to fight them…..lol
In a decade or so China would eclipse the US in military technology. This is not a hope or wishful thinking but a reality. Russia already has nullified any advantage the US had over it with its ABM systems, once Putin fielded the hypersonic weapon lineup…..lol…. The Su-50’s 117 engine is coming along well and it will power the first batch of the stealth warplanes. Iran has a UCAV industry even more advanced than that of Russia and China. China is fielding the J-20 and soon the J-31 and the H-20’s……lol…..all three countries in the troika share military tech and experience…… Good luck to trump in trying to fight them…..lol
He is a HERO …China has more voluntairs to spy on USA …we are coming !!!
He is a HERO …China has more voluntairs to spy on USA …we are coming !!!
Is this the wicked lier refered in the bible , book of revelation 12.9 :
" And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent , called the devil and satan , which deceived the whole world?
Is this red dragon , which, Jesus Christ, refered to as the greatest lier and the father of all lies in the bible ,book of john 8:44?
As a Christian believer in Jesus Christ, the the only one , true and holy Creator, God, King and savior of Israel and the world, I have no doubt that China is owned and contolled by the enemy of the God of Israel on the basis that, as a nation, it excercises no restraint in employing lies and deceitfullness as a official state policy to steal from the world.
China simply does not share the moral values of the rest of the world.
It works hard to oppose anything that is called good , right , lawfull or acceptible in the world. China has basically used lies and deceit as its means to exploit the world. It has accumulited excessive wealth through those wicked means , to use to achieve its wicked intentions.
China,s most effective method is to head hunt national/influential leaders in poor countries with weak governance and offer them gifts in cash and kind as a bait. Once the bait is taken , China moves in and pushes its agendas and exploits at will.
Is this wicked Red Dragon worth anyone’s trust?
Is this the wicked lier refered in the bible , book of revelation 12.9 :
" And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent , called the devil and satan , which deceived the whole world?
Is this red dragon , which, Jesus Christ, refered to as the greatest lier and the father of all lies in the bible ,book of john 8:44?
As a Christian believer in Jesus Christ, the the only one , true and holy Creator, God, King and savior of Israel and the world, I have no doubt that China is owned and contolled by the enemy of the God of Israel on the basis that, as a nation, it excercises no restraint in employing lies and deceitfullness as a official state policy to steal from the world.
China simply does not share the moral values of the rest of the world.
It works hard to oppose anything that is called good , right , lawfull or acceptible in the world. China has basically used lies and deceit as its means to exploit the world. It has accumulited excessive wealth through those wicked means , to use to achieve its wicked intentions.
China,s most effective method is to head hunt national/influential leaders in poor countries with weak governance and offer them gifts in cash and kind as a bait. Once the bait is taken , China moves in and pushes its agendas and exploits at will.
Is this wicked Red Dragon worth anyone’s trust?
It would not be surprising if Japan or France or UK is stealing technologies from the US or from each other, because that would simply be economic spying for pure commercial purposes. But China is a totally different story. For nearly 30 years after the 1989 Tian An Men massacre, numerous people both in China and the West have warned that the communist regimes of China openly despises the western system based on democracy, freedom and rule of law, and they admantly swear to replace the western system with China’s totalitarian political as well as social, cultural and eocnomic systems.Clinton could not care less because China was only 1/10 of the US power. W Bush was tied up in Afgan and Iraq and needed China’s cooperation. Obama…well…tried to compete against China’s socialism with America’s socialism. Until Donald Trump.
Cold War 2 was not started by the US: China simply upgraded it from CW1 after the Soviet collapse and has never, both theoretically and practically, strayed away from its ultimate goal of replacing the US as the world’s sole power. After some 30 years of fast economic and military grwoth in a friendly environment the US helped creating with globalization enbodied in the WTO, China finally shredded Deng Xiao-Ping’s strategy of "biding our time by concealing our ambitions" (韬光养晦) and declared "a great power rising" under the regime of Xi Jin-Ping.
What has the West done collectively while China steals or force-transfer technologies, breaks into every world markets while protects its own, censors internets while taking over media outlets throughtout the world in the name of "freedom of speech", recruits thousands of high-tech elites from western universities and companies, installs CCP branches in every private/foreign-owned companies in China while building Confucious Institutes to promote communist/authoritarian ideologies in the West…? Just to sell a few hundred Boeings, Airbuses and iPhones?
While western elites indulge themselves in bashing Trump for his non-PC rhetorics, he has emerged to be the one and only western leader since Reagan to clearly see, understand, warn about and dare to confront the imminent onslaught of a communist-nationalist-authoritarian power on the free world many people have taken for granted.
To those globalists and/or communicst apologists in your 20s and 30s and maybe 40s, get yourself an education on communism in the 1960s-80s, and find out how close the world is close to accept a fate like that of the Soviet Union in 1991. Or pleae take a trip to Venezuela or Cuba to see how your country can become under socialism-communism-totalitarianism. For those who think China is simply trying to developing its economy and grow the nation peacefully, take a trip to Vietnam, the Phillippines, Bhutan, or even Japan and India to ask: is China a friendly country under its current regime?
As a Chinese in my 50s who have been through the Cultural Revolution, the Reform and Open-Door years, the 1989 Massacre at Tian An Men, the Great Fire Wall, shutting down of numerous social media accouts criticizing the government…I know Trump is a contravercial president in the US, but let’s face it, he is a hero to hundreds of millions of Chinese who have to officially register a knife they buy. And don’t try to amaze me with the high-speed train of China. I have taken it close to 100 times and the fact is: it costs 17% of a monthly Shanghai salary to make a RT between Shanghai-Beijing, while similar trip (SF-Seattle) is only 3.5% of an average SF salary by flying.
China has been waging a cold war against the United States for decades , this includes stealing our tech. It’s time to respond.