Engineering Wednesday**
What are even doing here?
It all needs to be ITAR.
Enough!
Fraud, theft, and foreign collection are not a side story in American tech. They are a pattern. The taxpayer and the customer paid for the work. Someone else walked out with the file.
Wind Power. A federal jury convicted Chinese turbine maker Sinovel of stealing the control software of Massachusetts company AMSC. The Justice Department said AMSC lost more than $800 million in business, more than $1 billion in shareholder value, and almost 700 jobs. Sinovel recruited an insider, copied the source code, and built turbines with it so it would not have to pay.
Aviation. A Chinese Ministry of State Security officer, Yanjun Xu, was charged with trying to steal trade secrets from U.S. aviation companies, including work tied to GE. A GE engineer, Xiaoqing Zheng, was convicted of conspiring to steal turbine technology for Chinese companies and universities.
Missiles. Chenguang Gong, a dual U.S.-China citizen and former engineer, was sentenced to nearly four years for stealing more than 3,600 files on infrared sensors built to spot nuclear missile launches, track hypersonic missiles, and help U.S. fighters evade heat-seekers. Prosecutors said he had been applying to Chinese government talent programs for years while working at American tech firms.
Chips. The Justice Department indicted a Chinese state-owned chip company, a Taiwan foundry, and three individuals for a scheme to steal trade secrets from Idaho-based Micron.
Cars. Xiaolang Zhang pleaded guilty to stealing Apple trade secrets on its autonomous-car project, then heading to a Chinese electric-vehicle company to work on the same technology.
Labs. A multi-year scheme used University of Florida accounts to order purified toxins and drug standards, including cholera and pertussis proteins, and ship them to China. The ringleader pleaded guilty.
If AI isn't ITAR then why is every AI CEO telling us of how we should be fearing our adversaries in China of developing it firts?
This is wind, jet engines, missile sensors, memory chips, self-driving cars, and a university stockroom. Same move. Get hired. Copy the file to a USB. Leave- to live the life as a patriot to your home country.
ITAR already says that handing defense drawings to a foreign national in your own building is an export. The argument against putting ordinary technical work under the same rule is that companies need the labor, while 73% of American STEM grads cant even get into STEM Jobs.
CEO's and Politicians doing whatever they can to make a buck while costing our nation multiples in damages.
Look at the list.
The foreign labor took the product Americans and the Pentagon paid to build. The entire scam was paid for by foreign countries paying our ex-politician lobbyists.
The lobby likes the current setup. A badge, a laptop, and a flight home. National security does not.
Citations
- DOJ / Reuters: Sinovel convicted 2018, AMSC losses above $800 million and nearly 700 jobs
- DOJ: Yanjun Xu, MSS, aviation economic espionage charges, 2018
- DOJ, November 2025: Chenguang Gong sentenced to 46 months, missile-detection sensor files
- DOJ, 2018: Fujian Jinhua, UMC, Micron economic espionage indictment
- Xiaolang Zhang guilty plea, Apple autonomous-vehicle trade secrets, 2022
- University of Florida biochemical diversion to China, ringleader guilty plea, 2024
Question:
If the drawing was paid for here, why is the laptop allowed to leave with someone who does not owe this country a thing?