Chinese National Admits To Stealing Missile Defense Blueprints For Communist China

A dual citizen of China and the United States pled guilty on Monday to stealing American missile defense technology for the Chinese government. 

The Justice Department announced that 59-year-old Chenguang Gong pled guilty to theft of trade secrets. Gong, a former engineer who lives in San Jose, California, admitted to stealing information developed by the U.S. government for detecting nuclear missile launches, tracking ballistic and hypersonic missiles, and technology to assist fighter jets evade heat-seeking missiles. 

Gong, who faces up to 10 years in prison upon sentencing, is currently free on $1.75 million bond. 

In his plea agreement, Gong said that he transferred 3,600 files from the Los Angeles area research and development company where he worked and moved them to personal storage devices, including a personal laptop. The file transfers took place between March 2023 and April 2023, when he was fired by the company, which was identified as a victim of Gong.

The files contained blueprints for infrared sensors designed for use in space-based systems to detect missiles and blueprints for sensors for American military aircraft to combat heat-seeking missiles. Some of the files were later discovered at Gong’s private residence, the Justice Department said. 

The information on the files was worth hundreds of millions of dollars, according to prosecutors.

From 2014 to 2022, Gong applied for multiple “talent programs” run by the Chinese government while working for major American technology companies.  

The Justice Department said that China “established these talent programs as a means to identify individuals who have expert skills, abilities, and knowledge of advanced sciences and technologies in order to access and utilize those skills and knowledge in transforming the PRC’s economy, including its military capabilities.”

Gong sent in applications to the talent programs that mirrored technology produced by his employers. For example, in September 2020, Gong submitted an application for “low light/night vision” image sensors that had the model number of a sensor produced by a defense industry company he worked for from 2015-2019, according to investigators. 

The Justice Department also said that Gong took several trips to China to meet with talent program managers. In a 2019 email, Gong admitted that he “took a risk” to fly to China “because [he] worked for…an American military industry company.”

The guilty plea comes as government officials have attempted to crack down on intellectual property theft by China. It is estimated that Chinese-backed IP theft costs American companies between $300 to $600 billion per year.