A US-based Chinese scientist, Xiang Haitao, 44, a Chinese national formerly residing in Chesterfield, Missouri, stole trade secrets from Monsanto and its subsidiary, The Climate Corporation, from 2008 to 2017 where he worked as an imaging scientist. This case raises the issue of the extent of such theft of intellectual property, which according to many sources is one of the ways China has been able to advance so quickly technologically. The West, with its present-day non-discrimination, unlike China, freely allows the world to enter its research facilities, and assumes that they are nothing more than liberal individuals with no tribal and racial loyalty. Wrong assumption as cases like this show.
https://thenationalpulse.com/2022/01/14/monsanto-scientists-pleads-guilty-to-stealing-for-china/
“A former scientist employed by American agricultural giant Monsanto pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit economic espionage on behalf of the Chinese Communist Party against the U.S.
Xiang Haitao, 44, a Chinese national formerly residing in Chesterfield, Missouri, admitted to stealing trade secrets from Monsanto and its subsidiary, The Climate Corporation, from 2008 to 2017 where he worked as an imaging scientist.
“Despite Xiang’s agreements to protect Monsanto’s intellectual property and repeated training on his obligations to do so, Xiang has now admitted that he stole a trade secret from Monsanto, transferred it to a memory card and attempted to take it to the People’s Republic of China for the benefit of the Chinese government,” said Assistant Attorney General Matthew G. Olsen of the Justice Department’s National Security Division.
The stolen technology was a digital, online farming software platform that could collect, store and visualize critical agricultural field data and increase and improve agricultural productivity for farmers. A critical feature of the platform was a proprietary predictive algorithm referred to as the Nutrient Optimizer, which Monsanto and The Climate Corporation describe as a “valuable trade secret.”
In June 2017, the day after leaving Monsanto and The Climate Corporation, Xiang returned to China. While leaving the U.S., officials discovered his devices contained copies of the Nutrient Optimizer, which would have been useful to Xiang’s new employer: the Chinese Academy of Science’s Institute of Soil Science.”