On the other hand the US agencies conducted a large scale supply campaign that included industrial espionage [1] spying on charities, the heads of friendly governments and its own citizens, breaking into data centres of legitamte business in friendly nations to install equipment and lying to their own government [2] and AFAIK nobody ever went to prison for any of it.

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/ECHELON [2] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Snowden

Why is it ok for one country to do this, but somehow outrageous that another country does it (and likely on a much less sophisticated scale)

The 1st one just normal spy business. The 3rd one is just some guy hosting a piracy website, which has nothing to do with espionage.

Your evidence for some grand scheme of technology theft doesn't seem to be well supported or justify racial profiling.

regarding the 1st link, not sure what you mean, espionage is espionage.

regarding the 3rd link

"The theft and piracy perpetuated by Xiang Li, 36, of Chengdu, China, included industrial-grade software and confidential data stolen from the internal server of a cleared defense contractor"

> ...included industrial-grade software and confidential data stolen from the internal server of a cleared defense contractor...

Not by Xiang Li himself, it's worth noting. So this particular example at least hardly supports the general conclusion you seem to be implying.

> [Wronald Best]’s trafficking in cracked software involved not only stolen property but also stolen ideas. ... On the supply side of the equation, he was the one releasing MPD’s software into the “wilds” of the Internet by providing it to Russian Cracker, and assisting Xiang Li by providing detailed installation instructions. On the demand side of the equation, as a consumer, Best used stolen, cracked software to design and manufacture products for the military and law enforcement, without payment to the companies that created the software in the first place. (https://www.google.com/books/edition/CRACK99_The_Takedown_of...)

The point is every country has spies everywhere, just go to nearest embassy.

Yes he operated a site that hosted cracked software. How does this support your narrative he was a spy or that it was espionage instead of for personal financial gain?

Let’s have a read of the first paragraph

>The individual operated a website used to distribute more than $100 million worth of pirated software around the world, making it one of the most significant cases of copyright infringement ever uncovered – and dismantled

Why don’t you quote this paragraph of your source?

>The investigation revealed that Li used the Crack 99 website to distribute pirated or cracked software to customers all over the world, including the United States

It’s a hard sell spinning this into espionage.

None of these national secrets. If you think they are industrial spies, many, many other people are also convicted for stealing trade secrets.

> if you think they are industrial spies, many, many other people are also convicted for stealing trade secrets

Industrial spying for an adversary is o.g. espionage.

Crack99 had a significant number of American (government) customers. The crack softwares were used by a NASA engineer to help "do his job better" and by a chief scientist at a defense contractor to design components for Black Hawk and Marine One.[1][2]

[1] https://www.justice.gov/usao-de/pr/chief-scientist-governmen...

[2] https://www.justice.gov/archive/usao/de/news/2012/Li%20Press...

That's neither here nor there. espionages are espionages.