Swordsmyth
01-30-2019, 08:12 PM
We imagine there's nothing that would put a damper on trade talks quite like another indictment accusing a Chinese national of doing the exact thing (corporate espionage and stealing US trade secrets) that senior Trump Administration officials had warned would be deal-breaking for future negotiations.
Yet, on the very day high level trade talks began in Washington, it appears that's exactly what has happened. Days after the US filed a sweeping indictment against Huawei that included charges its engineers stole trade secrets from T-Mobile (allegations that were also the subject of a civil suit), NBC Bay Area (https://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local/Another-Apple-Engineer-Accused-of-Stealing-Autonomous-Vehicle-Trade-Secrets-505055701.html) reported that the FBI has arrested another Chinese national working for Apple's secretive self-driving car project - code-named "Project Titan" - for stealing trade secrets. That's the second such arrest in six months (readers can find our report on the earlier arrest, which happened in July, here (https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-07-11/us-arrests-apple-employee-suspected-stealing-self-driving-car-secrets)).
Apple reportedly started investigating the employee, an engineer named Jizhong Chen, when his fellow employees observed him taking photos of their work space. He was later found to be in possession of thousands of files containing proprietary trade secret like diagrams and manuals and schematics. The investigation escalated when Apple learned that Chen had applied for a job at a Chinese autonomous vehicle company. He was arrested the day before he was set to leave for China.
More at: https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-01-30/fbi-arrests-second-chinese-national-stealing-trade-secrets-apples-self-driving-car
Yet, on the very day high level trade talks began in Washington, it appears that's exactly what has happened. Days after the US filed a sweeping indictment against Huawei that included charges its engineers stole trade secrets from T-Mobile (allegations that were also the subject of a civil suit), NBC Bay Area (https://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local/Another-Apple-Engineer-Accused-of-Stealing-Autonomous-Vehicle-Trade-Secrets-505055701.html) reported that the FBI has arrested another Chinese national working for Apple's secretive self-driving car project - code-named "Project Titan" - for stealing trade secrets. That's the second such arrest in six months (readers can find our report on the earlier arrest, which happened in July, here (https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-07-11/us-arrests-apple-employee-suspected-stealing-self-driving-car-secrets)).
Apple reportedly started investigating the employee, an engineer named Jizhong Chen, when his fellow employees observed him taking photos of their work space. He was later found to be in possession of thousands of files containing proprietary trade secret like diagrams and manuals and schematics. The investigation escalated when Apple learned that Chen had applied for a job at a Chinese autonomous vehicle company. He was arrested the day before he was set to leave for China.
More at: https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-01-30/fbi-arrests-second-chinese-national-stealing-trade-secrets-apples-self-driving-car