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WASHINGTON – A Chinese intelligence chief has been arrested in Belgium and taken to the United States to face charges of spying, officials at the Justice Ministry said on Wednesday. spectacular escalation of Trump administration efforts to suppress Chinese espionage.
Yanjun Xu, deputy director of the division of a regional office of the Chinese Ministry of State Security, was extradited on Tuesday. This was the first time that a Chinese intelligence agent was brought to the United States to be prosecuted. According to law enforcement officials, he tried to steal trade secrets from GE Aviation.
"This unprecedented extradition of a Chinese intelligence officer exposes the Chinese government's direct surveillance of economic espionage against the United States," said William Priestap, deputy director of F.B.I's Counterintelligence Department.
US law enforcement officials consider Chinese espionage as one of their main concerns. China has for years been using espionage and cyberattacks to steal valuable business, academic and military information that it can use to reinforce its growing economic power and political clout.
Mr Xu was arrested in Belgium on 1 April after being lured there in the hope of obtaining information on GE Aviation.
Officials from the Justice Ministry said that they had waited for the extradition of Mr. Xu to unravel the charges of having committed economic espionage against the United States and of having attempted to steal trade secrets from US aviation companies. His transfer will allow prosecutors to try him in federal court in Cincinnati, where he appeared for the first time on Wednesday.
The Department of Justice is pursuing other theft of trade secrets for prosecution purposes, said John C. Demers, chief of the National Security Division of the Department of Justice. Together, they show that China's policy is to develop its economy "at the expense of America".
"This case is not an isolated incident," said Mr. Demers. "This is part of a comprehensive economic policy aimed at developing China at the expense of the United States. We can not tolerate a nation stealing our firepower and the fruits of our intelligence. "
Even more than Russia, China "represents the most complicated and durable threat of counterintelligence that we face," says F.B.I. The director, Christopher A. Wray, said Wednesday at a hearing of the Senate's Homeland Security Committee.
Kirstjen Nielsen, director of homeland security, told lawmakers that the Chinese authorities "bring everything they have to bear" to influence the United States "in every way possible".
In a speech last week, Vice President Mike Pence called China's economic development strategy a threat to national security, urging Chinese authorities to say that his remarks could foreboding of a new cold war.
The Chinese Ministry of State Security collects domestic and foreign intelligence through an extensive network of intelligence gatherers inside and outside the country. Some members are attachés and academics who openly collect information. Others work in secret like spies.
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