The case of U.S. Department of Justice charges a former Boeing engineer passing secrets to the PRC is not a just diplomatic issue, rather suggests an intense space race between China and US, from Time:
Both the U.S. and China have announced intentions of returning humans to the moon by 2020 at the earliest. And the two countries are already in the early stages of a new space race that appears to have some of the heat and skullduggery of the one between Washington and Moscow during the Cold War, when space was a proxy battleground for geopolitical dominance.
On Monday, the U.S. Department of Justice announced the indictment of a former Boeing engineer for passing sensitive information about the U.S. space program to the Chinese government. According to the indictment, Dongfan Chung, a 72-year-old California man who worked for Boeing until September 2006, gave China documents relating to military aircraft and rocket technology, as well as technical information about the U.S. Space Shuttle.
P.S. Major Chinese media earlier today had long analysis on the two spy cases and said U.S. again woos on the topic of China threat. Many these articles’ URL disappeared later.
