天大张教授定罪了

http://www.mitbbs.com/article_t/Military/57429837.html

发信人: dirtydad (dirtydad), 信区: Military
标  题: 天大张教授定罪了
发信站: BBS 未名空间站 (Fri Jun 26 21:41:47 2020, 美东)



A Chinese professor was found guilty by a judge of trade-secret theft and
and an even more serious and rarer charge of economic espionage, marking the
latest conviction in the Trump administration's pursuit of Chinese
scientists and engineers.

At an unusual in-person courtroom hearing Friday during the coronavirus
pandemic, a federal judge in San Jose, California, announced the verdict
against Hao Zhang.

Arrested in 2015 when he flew to Los Angeles for a conference, Zhang was
accused of conspiring with a colleague from the University of Southern
California to steal and sell American secrets to the Chinese government and
military through a shell company in the Cayman Islands.

Zhang was charged during an aggressive U.S. crackdown on Chinese theft of
intellectual property that began under former President Barack Obama has
continued under the Trump administration, which has applied heavy scrutiny
to Chinese scientists doing research in the U.S. He faces up to 15 years in
prison for economic espionage and 10 years for theft of trade secrets,
according to a court filing.

Read More: As China Anxiety Rises in U.S., Fears of New Red Scare Emerge

Friday's verdict comes amid worsening ties between the world's two biggest
economies. Despite meetings that U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo held
with his Chinese counterpart in Hawaii last week, relations remain soured
over issues from China's handling of the coronavirus to its move to enact
legislation restricting Hong Kong and its treatment of ethnic minorities in
Xinjiang province.

The Pentagon this week published a list of 20 Chinese companies it said were
owned or controlled by China's military, potentially exposing them to
further sanctions in the U.S. On Thursday, the U.S. won an arrest warrant
for the former president of China's state-owned chipmaker as part of the
Trump administration's "China Initiative" targeting trade-secret theft,
hacking and economic espionage.

Zhang's lawyers argued that his work at one of China's most prestigious
technical universities to develop radio-filtering technology used in mobile
phones was about advancing scientific knowledge -- and not for the benefit
of the Chinese state.

Zhang and his lawyers chose to make his case before U.S. District Judge
Edward Davila instead a jury in what legal experts called a "damage control
" defense. His lawyers conceded evidence including emails that prosecutors
said contained trade-secret data and admissions he made while being
questioned by the FBI. In closing arguments, his lawyers also made a
strategic choice to focus on the more serious espionage charges instead of
the trade-secret theft allegations.

Prosecutors said the secrets Zhang stole came from a former employer,
Skyworks Solutions Inc., based in Woburn, Massachusetts, and San Jose-based
Avago Technologies Ltd., which acquired Broadcom Inc. in 2015. The
technology at issue filters out unwanted signals in mobile phones and other
devices, which has become more difficult as wireless products have become
ubiquitous.

Zhang went to work for Skyworks after earning his doctorate in electrical
engineering at the University of Southern California in 2006. At USC he met
Wei Pang, who went on to work at Avago and, according to prosecutors, was
Zhang's key co-conspirator. Both men returned to China to teach at Tianjin
University, a premier technical school.

At TJU, the professors allegedly used stolen information to refine radio-
filter technology, apply for patents in the U.S. and China, and sell it
through a company incorporated in the Cayman Islands. Zhang was the first of
six defendants to go to trial -- and probably the only one because the
others are in China.

Davila said during Friday's hearing that the evidence presented at trial --
much of it agreed to by both sides -- showed Zhang knew the information at
issue was a trade secret. "He filed patent applications using the stolen
secrets and listing himself as the inventor," the judge said.

In support of his finding Zhang guilty of economic espionage, Davila cited
evidence that professor's plan was sponsored by TJU.

Zhang's lawyer had no immediate comment on the verdict. Sentencing is set
for Aug. 31.

The case is U.S. v. Zhang, 15-cr-00106, U.S. District Court, Northern
District of California (San Jose).
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※ 修改:・dirtydad 於 Jun 26 21:45:52 2020 修改本文・[FROM: 100.]