U.S. Defeat in Micron Trade-Secrets Case Reveals Struggle Countering Beijing
U.S. officials across the political spectrum have described Chinese corporate theft as a defining threat of our times. A Justice Department loss last week underscores the challenges in addressing it.
When senior engineers and managers at the Taiwan factory of the U.S. chip maker Micron Technology left abruptly with hundreds of internal files nearly a decade ago for a rival teaming up with a Chinese government-owned company, it looked to prosecutors like an open-and-shut case of state-sponsored corporate theft. A federal judge in San Francisco disagreed, acquitting Chinese state-owned company Fujian Jinhua Integrated Circuit last week of charges of economic espionage and conspiracy.
It was a crushing defeat in a case the Justice Department had made the centerpiece of a yearslong push dating to the Trump Administration to protect domestic companies from Chinese efforts to steal American corporate secrets. Trade-secret prosecutions have been viewed across administrations as a promising avenue for deterring Chinese entities, but U.S. authorities have struggled.
Prosecutors have pursued some cases in which the facts were murky, and later faced hurdles in proving criminal intent. “There are limits to prosecuting cross-border trade secrets cases involving China given it is nearly impossible to produce evidence or witnesses," said Jimmy Goodrich, a China and semiconductor expert advising the Rand Corp. Other tools in the U.S.
arsenal, such as sanctions or restricting Chinese access to U.S. technology, can impose greater costs on China, but they also come with risks of unintended consequences, including backlash for U.S. companies.
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