On July 5^th American geologist Xue Feng was sentenced to eight years in prison for stealing state secrets in the form of a database containing information about the Chinese state-run oil industry. This database contained the location and condition of oil and wells belonging to China's government-owned National Petroleum Corp. A naturalized U.S. citizen who lived in Houston, Texas, Xue was collecting the information for the U.S. –based consultancy firm, IHS Energy. This arrest comes after Xue’s  arrest in November 2007 on similar charges, during which he claims that he was tortured by his interrogators; they hit him over the head with an ashtray and put out lit cigarettes on his arms.

Many draw parallels between Xue's arrest and that of naturalized Australian citizen Stern Hu who was arrested in March 2007 and sentenced to 10 years for stealing commercial secrets regarding China’s iron ore purchases and bribery while working for the mining firm Rio Tinto. Both cases have been cause for increasing concern in the international business community that the Chinese government may be willing to use its murky State secrets laws in order to protect domestic industries from foreign competition.

Unlike Hu’s case, Xue’s case was kept low profile in order to protect family members that still resided in China from backlash, but in the end this may have hurt his chances for receiving a lighter sentence. Xue’s case did, however, attract the support of US Ambassador Jon Huntsman who attended the court session on July 5^th and called for Xue’s humanitarian release to the United States. Three of Xue’s Chinese colleagues were also arrested; one received the same sentence as Xue the other two received reduced fines and sentences of only two and a half years. Xue has until July 14^th to appeal his verdict, which his attorney Tong Wei has called the “worst possible outcome.”