Agro Espionage – Rice to China – Wengui Yan’s guilty plea

On 24 October 2016, Wengui Yan, an Arkansas resident, an employee of the USDA Dale Bumpers National Rice Research Center since 1996, and a naturalized US citizen originally from the PRC, successfully negotiated a plea-bargain with the Kansas US Attorney in his agro espionage case. Yan and his co-defendant, Weiqiang Zhang, PRC citizen, facilitated the theft of genetic rice from the United States on behalf of the PRC. The plea-bargain saw all counts of espionage dropped against Yan, in exchange for his guilty plea of making false statement to the US Government, concerning the theft. Yan will serve a maximum of 20 months in prison and be fined $100.  Yan’s co-defendant, Zhang’s case continues to move forward (interestingly, Zhang dismissed his court-appointed attorney on 28 October).

Espionage in the Heartland: Rice to China

We discussed this case of agro espionage where the insider made possible the economic espionage against a US entity, the US Department of Agriculture and their private sector partners,Ventria Bioscience (Ventria) in our piece Espionage in the Heartland: Rice to China. We outlined how the fleecing of approximately $75 million worth of research and development by Ventria went out the door with the successful theft by the visiting Chinese scientists from the Crop Research Institute in China, part of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Science, which also has State Key Laboratory affiliation.  The visiting Chinese scientists who were assisted by both Yan and Zhang. Whether or not the USDA or Ventria is happy to know that Yan plead guilty and has received a modest penalty for his criminal activity is unknown. From this seat, this modest sentence and fine levied upon Yan is light and will hardly serve as a deterrent to others.  It is therefore, safe to assume, the lenient sentence was designed to garner the cooperation of Yan, the US citizen, in securing the conviction of Zhang or to force his acceptance of a plea-deal. Perhaps Zhang read his tea-leaves and this is why Zhang is awaiting new counsel.

China’s Agro Espionage

What is known, is that the United States agricultural sector is sitting in the bullseye of the global agro espionage milieu. The PRC government has laser focus on increasing and sustaining their agricultural sector, as their cities and population continues to blossom. China always plays the long-game, eschewing quarterly forecasts and the like. Their entities, supported by PRC government resources will work assiduously to bypass and avoid the trials and tribulations involved in such complex research and simply steal their way to productivity and profitability. This places companies like Ventria, who may never had to think about putting together and insider threat program. The reality is they need to have an insider threat program in place or they will find themselves competing against their own creations in a marketplace where price and access is such an important differentiator.

With respect to China’s long term view on the agriculture sector, one needs only read what China is saying and how they back those words up with actions. As detailed in The IP Commission Report of May 2013, on the theft of intellectual property from the United States. The report details how the theft of US intellectual property is valued at “hundreds of billions of dollars per year. The annual losses are likely to be comparable to the current annual level of U.S. exports to Asia—over $300 billion.” 

In January 2016, the Chinese Ministry of Agriculture announced that for the 13th consecutive year, the “Agriculture, rural community and farmer related issues are once again the topic of China’s ‘No. 1 Central Document’.”  The goal, “marked progress” in agriculture by 2020 to ensure society becomes moderately prosperous. Thus we can read directly, for the past 13 years agricultural advancement has been and continues to be paramount. The case of Yan and Zhang are demonstrative of the manner in which China is willing to acquire their R&D to achieve their national goals.

 

What’s next?

The final acts germane to this case of agro espionage are:

• The conviction of Zhang.
• The US agricultural sector, invest in security infrastructure and awareness as the reality of their being firmly in the bullseye of the Chinese. The Chinese are both willing and able to use agro espionage is a tool to obtain expensive R&D in the most economic manner possible, steal it.