US ties activities of arrested Chinese military officer to those by defendant in Boston case
(South China Morning Post | June 25, 2020) US federal prosecutors in Los Angeles have tied the activities of an arrested Chinese military officer conducting research at the University of California to that of a Chinese defendant charged in another high-profile case, in what Washington sees as a coordinated pattern of spying.
The indictments reflect the US government’s efforts to prevent advanced technologies developed in America from being transferred to China’s military, as lawmakers and government officials all the way up to President Donald Trump warn of Beijing’s attempts to undermine national security …
… Corri Zoli, director of research at the Institute for Security Policy & Law at Syracuse University in New York, went further: “I can’t imagine that the Chinese government would be sending active-duty military officers to academic tech programmes, who are on their payroll and engaging is some sort of transfer of research technology, and they’re not somehow involved” in an orchestrated tech transfer strategy, she said.
“These efforts are very much a kind of fourth-generation warfare or information-warfare-type strategy, and this is the way of our contemporary world,” Zoli added.
“It’s not just China doing this. It’s everybody. This is the way that we’re evolving into a new battlespace, but China happens to be very effective at it.”