“If you think of him as a vector for tech acquisition that runs contrary to U.S. interests, we identified that, punished him, and that did nothing to stop the big-picture trend,” said Emily de La Bruyère, co-founder of China-focused consultancy Horizon Advisory and a senior fellow at the Washington-based Foundation ​for Defense of Democracies, a nonprofit research institute considered hawkish on foreign policy. Gerstell, the former U.S. official, described Lieber as “Exhibit A” in how U.S. legal tools are inadequate. “This is a guy who was convicted of precisely the thing that we want him to be convicted of in this context, and yet the minute he's released from house arrest, he’s off in China,” he said.

"Why didn't our drakonian treatment not result in him loving the USA!!!111"