National Interest: New scandal as a US navy is spying for China
The United States has accused China of carrying out a widespread espionage campaign and repeated cyberattacks within its territory, according to a report by the National Interest.
The National Interest quoted a statement issued by the US Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of California last Thursday that Jinchao Wei, also known as “Patrick Wei” in California, is charged with six counts, including “espionage, conspiracy to commit espionage, and unlawful export of classified information”.
The statement added that Jinchao Wei was acquitted of one count of naturalization fraud, and had he been convicted, he would have lost his US citizenship.
Patrick Wee, 25, a naturalized US citizen serving in the Navy, leaked information about the Wasp-class amphibious assault ship USS Essex (LHD-2) to China.
According to the report, Wei, who served on the same ship, received more than $12,000 over an 18-month period (from March 2022 to August 2023) in exchange for passing information to a Chinese intelligence officer whom he later referred to as “Big Brother Andy”.
Wei was accused of handing over up to 60 secret technical and mechanical manuals for various ships, along with details of Marine training and numbers, which they were conducting in preparation for an imminent military exercise.
According to the magazine, he is scheduled to be sentenced to life imprisonment next December.
According to the report, what further complicates the case is that the defendant’s mother encouraged him to cooperate with the Chinese officer, believing it might help him obtain a future government job in Beijing, while he was simultaneously undergoing the process of obtaining US citizenship.
However, Wei’s case isn’t an isolated one; it highlights China’s escalating attempts to infiltrate the US military establishment.
Last March, the US Department of Justice charged two American soldiers, Jian Zhao and Li Tian, as well as former soldier Ruoyu Duan, with collecting sensitive information for Beijing about MD Bradley and Stryker armored fighting vehicles.
In 2023, Warrant Officer Wenheng Zhao, also known as “Thomas Zhao,” pleaded guilty to bribery and conspiracy charges.
He was arrested at the same time as Wei after passing on information about US radars at bases in Okinawa, Japan, and other details related to the security of military operations in the Indo-Pacific region.
He received approximately $14,800 in return, and in January 2024 was sentenced to 27 months in prison and a $5,000 fine.
The National Interest reported that Washington considers these cases evidence of a systematic espionage campaign by China coupled with repeated cyber-attacks targeting US infrastructure.
However, the Chinese Foreign Ministry quickly denied these accusations, describing them as baseless.
