Engineer indicted in alleged plot to sell military trade secrets

A Chinese engineer was charged Thursday with stealing trade secrets from a Silicon Valley company that made military training software and attempting to sell them to Asian governments.

Xiaodong Sheldon Meng, 42, a Chinese national with Canadian citizenship, was indicted on 36 felony counts, including the rare charge of economic espionage to benefit a foreign government and various violations of military technology export laws.

In an unrelated but similar economic espionage case, two other engineers pleaded guilty Thursday to stealing proprietary computer chip designs from four technology giants and attempting to smuggle them to China.