From E&E News:

“The actual threat of serving time in jail is nonexistent for these people,” Paul Rosenzweig, former federal prosecutor and former senior official at the Department of Homeland Security, said in a recent interview before yesterday’s indictments. “They’ll never be given up for trial, they’ll never see the inside of a jail.”

During the Obama administration, public indictments offered a way to convince China to stop stealing intellectual property, and the indictments were meant to bring the two countries to the table, Rosenzweig said. He noted that this method worked for a few years before China once again began ramping up its espionage campaigns.

However, Rosenzweig said that the same strategy is not likely to be as effective anymore, partly because the Trump administration has taken a more aggressive approach toward relations with China in general.

“They’re intended to be punitive in nature and purely deterrent in nature, and as such, I think they’re likely to be less successful,” Rosenzweig said.

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