A sentence was handed down on Aug. 19 to a Chinese woman found guilty of plotting to illegally export weapons to the Chinese military. The woman, Man Wenxia, was sentenced to 50 months in federal prison.

Picture from website

Man, 45, runs an electronics business with her husband in California. According to court records, Man became a U.S. citizen in 2006. A BBC report stated that between March 2011 and June 2013, Man allegedly conspired with a China-based “technology spy” to transport military weapons and supplies to China. The supplies included engines used in F-35, F-22 and F-16 fighter jets, as well as an MQ-9 drone. Man’s scheme was discovered in 2015, and she was declared in guilty in June of this year.

He Zhipeng, vice president of the School of Foreign Affairs of Jilin University, said that American courts are often particularly harsh in cases involving China. Although He understands caution on the part of the U.S. when it comes to national security, he said it often seems as though the U.S. is unendingly suspicious of China, failing to treat China as a true strategic partner. According to He, cases like Man’s indicate U.S. insecurities where China is concerned: on the one hand, they do constitute a real national security issue; but on the other hand, the U.S. often seems to be making a bigger deal of them than is necessary. He sees this as an anachronistic “Cold War mentality.”

Man’s lawyer, Alex Strassman, says Man plans to appeal the verdict. According to a report in The Guardian, Strassman argued in court that Man’s actions did not constitute a serious attempt to provide China with military resources.

File Photo: Chinese-American scientist Dr. Xi Xiaoxing. U.S. federal prosecutors  dropped charges against Dr. Xi, a Temple University professor who had been accused of scheming to provide classified U.S. technology to China in March, 2016.