TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — A former graduate student living in Chicago, Ji Chaoqun (紀超群), was sentenced to eight years in prison on Wednesday (Jan. 25) for spying for the Chinese government by collecting information on engineers and scientists in the U.S.

Ji worked under high-level intelligence officers in the Jiangsu Province Ministry of State Security (JSSD), a provincial department of China’s Ministry of State Security, according to the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ). He was ordered by Xu Yanjun (徐延軍), a deputy division director within the Ministry of State Security, to provide biographical information on certain individuals for possible recruitment by the JSSD.

In 2016, Ji joined the U.S. Army Reserves under the Military Accessions Vital to the National Interest program (MAVNI), which authorized the U.S. Armed Forces to recruit legal non-immigrants with certain skills considered important to the national interest. He falsely claimed in his application that he had no contact with a foreign government in the past seven years.

In an interview with a U.S. Army officer, Ji did not mention his contacts with a foreign intelligence officer, per the DOJ.

In 2018, the graduate student met with an undercover law enforcement agent posing as a Ministry of State Security representative multiple times. Ji said that with his military identification, he could visit and take photos of “Roosevelt-class” aircraft carriers, the DOJ reported.

He also said that once he was granted U.S. citizenship and security clearance through the MAVNI program, he would seek a job at the CIA, FBI, or NASA.

Ji’s sentencing comes as the Biden administration is bolstering its efforts to focus attention on suspected covert operations by the Chinese government in the U.S.