China today denied that it was stealing American space technology after a scientist admitted selling the information to the communist state.

Physicist Quan-Sheng Shu, 68, a naturalised American citizen born in Shanghai, pleaded guilty in a district court in Norfolk, Virginia, yesterday to selling rocket technology to China and bribing Chinese officials to secure a lucrative contract for his high-tech company. The US has an arms embargo on China.

Qin Gang, a spokesman for China’s foreign ministry, said today that allegations that his country was stealing space technology were being made with “ulterior motives and … in vain”.

Shu sold technology to China for the development of hydrogen-propelled rockets and cryogenics equipment for the fuelling system of launch facilities between 2003 and 2007. But Shu’s lawyer said the case had nothing to do with espionage or treason.

The Chinese government is developing a launch facility, in the southern island province of Hainan, which will house liquid-propelled vehicles designed to send space stations and satellites into orbit. The project is overseen by an arm of the People’s Liberation Army.

Prosecutors said Shu, the president of the American company Amac International, had directed employees to falsify information to circumvent US laws. He was also charged with bribing Chinese officials to award a $4m (£2.7m) hydrogen liquefier contract to a French company acting as an Amac intermediary.

Shu received more than $386,000 in commissions for securing the contract, but has already agreed to forfeit that money. He faces up to 10 years’ imprisonment on each arms count and five years for the bribery charge, plus fines of up to $2.5m. He will be sentenced in April.

US authorities have prosecuted more than a dozen cases of either traditional spying or economic espionage related to China in recent years.

guardian.co.uk