1 big read: Cracking a Chinese spy case

In October, the U.S. Department of Justice announced the indictment of Chinese Ministry of State Security (MSS) operative Yanjun Xu for allegedly attempting to commit economic espionage and steal trade secrets from multiple U.S. aviation and aerospace companies.

What's happening: Xu is awaiting trial in U.S. custody, after he had been lured to Belgium, arrested, and then extradited to the U.S. One of his targets was reportedly GE Aviation, and this week local Cincinnati WCPO provided new details on the case in their report...

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Why it matters: Xi's exhortations to achieve "self-reliance" and "control core technologies" increase the pressure on the PRC bureaucracy to work even harder to obtain those core technologies by any means necessary.

The other side: At the same time, the DOJ under Trump has more aggressively publicized these cases and for the first time extradited a serving MSS operative to the U.S. Regardless of what happens with the trade negotiations, this is an area where U.S.-China tensions look set to increase markedly.

Go deeper:

• The Cybersecurity 202: U.S. officials: It’s China hacking that keeps us up at night (The Washington Post)
• Chinese Hackers Target Universities in Pursuit of Maritime Military Secrets (WSJ)