US soldier pleads guilty to selling defense information to China

WASHINGTON, United States — A US Army intelligence analyst pleaded guilty on Tuesday to providing sensitive defense information to China, including documents about US weapons systems and military tactics and strategy.

Sergeant Korbein Schultz, who held a top-secret security clearance, was arrested in March at Fort Campbell, a military base on the Kentucky-Tennessee border.

Schultz pleaded guilty to charges of conspiring to obtain and disclose national defense information, exporting technical data related to defense articles without a license, conspiracy to export defense articles without a license, and bribery of a public official, the Justice Department said in a statement.

According to the charging documents, Schultz provided dozens of sensitive US military documents to an individual living in Hong Kong who he believed to be associated with the Chinese government.

He was paid $42,000 for the information, according to the Justice Department.

Among the documents handed over by Schultz was one discussing the lessons learned by the US Army from the Ukraine-Russia war that it would apply in a defense of Taiwan.

Other documents discussed Chinese military tactics and preparedness and US military exercises and forces in South Korea and the Philippines.

Other documents included information related to the HH-60 helicopter, the F-22A fighter jet, the U-2 reconnaissance aircraft and missile systems.

"Governments like China are aggressively targeting our military personnel and national security information and we will do everything in our power to ensure that information is safeguarded from hostile foreign governments," said Robert Wells, executive assistant director of the FBI's National Security Branch.

Schultz potentially faces decades in prison. A sentencing hearing has been scheduled for January 23, 2025.

Schultz's arrest came less than a year after the arrests of two US Navy sailors in California on charges of spying for China.

Petty officer Wenheng Zhao was sentenced to 27 months in prison in January after pleading guilty to charges of conspiring with a foreign intelligence officer and accepting a bribe.

Zhao and another US sailor, Jinchao Wei, were arrested in August.