General Electric “Aviation” spied by the Chinese. Beijing 007 arrested

A process is underway in the United States that could have very serious diplomatic repercussions between Washington and Beijing. The court case concerns Yanjun Xu, Also known as Qu Hui o Zhang Hui, who, according to American judges, appears to be the deputy director of a major division of the Ministry of State Security (MSS), the Chinese intelligence agency.

Xu was arrested by the Belgian police in April 2018 and was then extradited to the United States where he will have to answer for the heavy accusation of conspiracy and industrial espionage against the GE Aviation, belonging to the American world giant of the General Electric.

The trial began last week in Cincinnati, the city where General Electric is headquartered. Prosecutors in a district court accuse Xu of leading a larger global plan of the MSS, implemented to spy on civilian and military aviation manufacturers. The alleged spying campaign, according to prosecutors, began in 2013.


A witness, heard during the trial, claims that the Chinese intelligence services are interested in discovering the technical characteristics of GE Aviation's advanced gas turbine engine. In fact, Xu is also accused of trying to bribe employees of aviation industries, in exchange for accessing secret projects for engines and other similar components.

In addition to the intelligence action on the ground, China allegedly used powerful computer viruses to try to steal industrial secrets, systematically breaching corporate networks. The testimony of an engineer of the French aviation company was also deposited, Safran: all the information on his laptop, infected with malware, during a business trip to China in 2014, would have been copied.

General Electric “Aviation” spied by the Chinese. Beijing 007 arrested