It's all out war when talking about China trying to get around technology bans set by the U.S. regarding chip technology. Last June a former executive at South Korea's Samsung Electronics was indicted on suspicion of stealing company technology for a copy-cat chip factory in China and jeopardizing national economic security, prosecutors said. South Korea is a chipmaking powerhouse, increasingly pressed by the geopolitical and economic rivalry between the United States and China. President Yoon Suk Yeol described the chip industry competition as "all-out war."

Fast forwarding to yesterday we learn that South Korean police have arrested two former Samsung Electronics Co. officials on suspicion of stealing technologies worth more than 4.3 trillion won ($3.2 billion) to build a copycat chipmaking plant in China.

The Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency on Tuesday described how the pair had collaborated with local Chinese officials to build a semiconductor facility. One of the two, identified as a 66-year-old surnamed Choi, recruited South Korean chip experts and leaked Samsung memory technologies via a joint venture, the police said in a statement.

Korea, as the world’s foremost producer of memory chips, is a key ally of Washington in efforts to contain Beijing’s technological ambitions. On Tuesday, Seoul police described what it called a serious security violation perpetrated through a Chinese JV, Chengdu Gaozhen. Choi served as the venture’s chief and was aided by a plant designer surnamed Oh, police said in their statement.

The pair collaborated with officials to produce 20-nanometer DRAM chips last year, the police said. That not only damaged Samsung but “weakened the nation’s competitiveness when the countries are in a global chip war,” the agency said in its statement. For more, read the full BNN Bloomberg report and a report by PCMag.