A U.S. Navy sailor was sentenced to 27 months in prison on Monday for accepting almost $15,000 in allurements from a Chinese intelligence officer in exchange for images of unclassified personal U.S. military details.
Petty Officer Wenheng “Thomas” Zhao, 26, pleaded guilty last October to conspiracy and getting an allurement. Zhao, who had actually dealt with an optimum of 20 years in jail, was likewise fined $5,500, the U.S. justice department stated in a declaration.
Zhao, who operated at Naval Base Ventura County in California, confessed sending his Chinese handler prepare for U.S. military workouts in the Indo-Pacific area, functional orders, and electrical diagrams and plans for a radar system on a U.S. military base in Okinawa, Japan.
“Zhao selected to betray the oath he required to our nation and put others at threat,” stated Larissa Knapp, executive assistant director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s National Security Branch.
“Today’s sentencing shows, yet once again, the failure of China’s intelligence services to avoid the FBI and our essential partners from nabbing and prosecuting the spies China hires,” she stated in a declaration.
The United States has actually implicated China of a substantial project of espionage and cyberattacks, a charge that Beijing turns down.
On Tuesday, the Chinese foreign ministry stated it was uninformed of the information.
“I’m not familiar with the specifics, however I would keep in mind that top-level U.S. intelligence authorities stated they made development in reconstructing their spy network in China,” stated Mao Ning, a foreign ministry representative, at a routine press conference.
“America on the one hand consistently shares incorrect details about so-called Chinese spies, and yet on the other hand freely states it wishes to introduce massive espionage activities versus China. This is a double requirement.”
In the last few years, bilateral relations have actually grown tense over a variety of concerns consisting of nationwide security, trade curbs, COVID-19 and Taiwan.
A top in San Francisco in November in between Chinese President Xi Jinping and U.S. President Joe Biden was commonly seen to have actually assisted cool stress.
“China-U.S. relations saw severe problem at the start of 2023,” Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi stated on Tuesday at a seminar in Beijing.
“After strenuous efforts, both sides reorganized interaction and discussion, and bilateral relations had the ability to stop intensifying and to stabilise.” REUTERS