The former General Electric engineer found guilty of stealing trade secrets to benefit China has lost his bid to overturn his conviction.

Xiaoqing Zheng worked developing steam turbines. He was convicted of conspiracy to commit economic espionage. He provided technical information to a co-conspirator in China to benefit Zheng’s turbine-related businesses in China, investigators said.

Zheng had worked for GE Power. Prosecutors said that he gave a presentation at a Chinese university in June or July 2017 that may have contained proprietary information related to the design of turbine seals.

He also had more than 400 encrypted files on his GE computer. They had technical information embedded into what appeared to be a picture of a sunrise.

Zheng was sentenced in January 2023 to two years in prison. He sought to overturn the conviction, alleging that prosecutors did not prove he acted in concert with the Chinese government to steal trade secrets.

However, prosecutors called a witness who testified that public universities in China are heavily monitored by the federal government. The country was trying to upgrade its manufacturing capabilities, including in aerospace and turbine manufacturing, as part of a five-year plan.

However, the Court of Appeals wrote in an Aug. 28 decision that they did not need to prove direct collaboration from a foreign government only that: “the defendant must intend or know that his misappropriation of a trade secret will benefit a foreign government.”

The court also dismissed his argument that the district court erred in setting the length of his sentence, given the potential economic loss to GE’s business.