In June 2020, a federal judge convicted Chinese citizen Hao Zhang of economic espionage, theft of trade secrets, and conspiracy. According to the investigators, between 2010 and 2015, Zhang “plotted with Tianjin University to take trade secrets from two U.S. companies, including his own employer, to China for the benefit of the Chinese Government.” Zhang’s sentencing hearing is scheduled for 31 August 2020. Investigators insist that Tianjin University in China is “an instrumentality of the Chinese government” and that Zhang’s economic espionage helped Tianjin University and another Chinese company to unfairly compete in the market.