Underlining the linkage between economic prowess and political clout, the first criminal conviction under the Federal Economic Espionage Act is going to trial this week.

The backdrop definitively frames large-scale corporate machinations within the context of national security and international leverage:

Edward J. Appel, a former FBI agent and former director of counterintelligence programs for the National Security Council, said the alleged activities by Chung could be terribly damaging for the U.S. and for Boeing.

“Since about 1990, we’ve been engaged in a huge economic war (with China). We’ve gotten hurt, we’ve really gotten beat up,” said Appel, now chief executive of a private intelligence company called iNameCheck LLC.

“Not all countries play this intellectual economic game the same way … and it’s very easy to steal information from a company if you are a trusted insider,” he added.

Nothing new about the concept of war by other means, from diplomacy through to pure propaganda. But I wonder just how much this state-sponsored industrial spying differs from well-established corporate espionage.