You mean like the US has been doing using their spying capabilities for years? Look up the echolon project or the recent scandal about US spying in Germany, a significant portion has been aimed at industrial espionage.

This is the thing that annoys me, many Americans approve their government doing industrial espionage to other countries, but then are morally outraged when others do it.

Then maybe we shouldn't approve J1 Visas for people who openly say had a working relationship with the People's Liberation Army?

US has plans for this with their F1 visa program for students. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8365229/US-expel-Ch...

It doesn't make sense to say "authorities should have known better" in the context of making a decision based on falsehoods. It's basically the quote from Animal House - "you fucked up, you trusted [me]". It's a joke, because it's a parody of chutzpah.

We're not at war, and I assume it's perfectly legal to copy information about labs or whatever, so long as you don't incidentally violate any contracts or laws.

I mean, kinda. In any case, state sponsored intellectual property theft is par for the course, and any state would do it in the situation where China is now, and indeed every state so far did it. So I don't really think it's morally wrong, we got where we are from state-sponsored intellectual property theft and they will get to where they will go from that too.

Ultimately, there is no real morality when it comes to the actions of state actors beyond "will it improve my citizen's life?". This most certainly will, so for a Chinese official it seems moral to them.

A person can, in principle, hold the opinion that copying IP is not inherently immoral, but that ancillary crimes may be. I mean, if you think it's ok to do something, does that mean anything you do in pursuit of it is ok?

What anciliary crime did they commit except copying IP? Lying on a visa application? It's very difficult to argue that this would be a grave moral crime.

Well, lying generally, and in this case, is a means to imposing something on people without their consent.

Many people do believe it is a moral wrong to impose something on other people without their consent.

Sure, but the ends do justify the means, at least to some extent. I really don't think anyone outside of the US thinks that stealing IP in the goal of (in their eyes) lifting millions out of poverty isn't justifiable.

You could also make an argument that the other people are withholding something that could be used to do good for their own interests they lose the moral high ground.

In any case, there is really no moral argument to indict them, it's purely a question of interests in this case, so let's not pretend.