South Korea’s New Espionage Law and Foreign-Linked Technology Theft

South Korea’s espionage-law expansion took effect on September 13, 2026, closing a longstanding gap between the treatment of spying for North Korea and spying linked to other foreign countries. The change gives prosecutors a potential national-security charge in serious technology-leak cases—but only when the conduct meets the new offense’s requirements.111

What Article 98-2 changes

The previous espionage provision focused on acts benefiting an “enemy state,” a category applied in practice to North Korea. The revised Criminal Act adds Article 98-2 for espionage connected to a foreign country or an organization treated as equivalent to one. Reports describe it as the first major expansion of these provisions since their 1953 origins.1314

Article 98-2 covers seeking, collecting, disclosing, transferring or brokering state secrets under the direction or inducement of—or through other communication with—a foreign country or equivalent organization. Reporting puts the prison sentence for the new offense at a minimum of three years and a maximum of 30 years. The existing provision for espionage benefiting an enemy state remains in place.71114

That distinction matters for chip and AI companies. Sensitive technical information could potentially be the subject of an espionage case, but a commercial trade secret does not become a state secret merely because it is valuable or reaches an overseas recipient. The available reports do not establish that every designated national core technology automatically meets Article 98-2’s state-secret requirement, or precisely when a private foreign company counts as an equivalent organization.41114

What the leak figures show—and do not show

One report says overseas technology-leak cases referred to prosecutors increased from nine in 2021 to 33 in 2025. Another reports that China accounted for 54.5% of overseas cases. Those figures point to the prominence of foreign-linked investigations, but the available excerpts do not establish that the two reports use the same case definition or denominator.316

The supplied evidence is not sufficient to give a reliable 2025 total for all technology leaks, a sector-by-sector breakdown, or percentages involving insiders and small or midsized businesses. Nor does it establish China’s Foreign Ministry response or support attributing views on penalties, recruitment or China’s chip-industry growth to Sangmyung University professor Lee Jong-hwan. Those details should not be inferred from the case counts.

Why prevention still matters

A broader criminal charge changes what prosecutors can pursue after a qualifying disclosure; it cannot reverse the disclosure itself. Detecting suspicious recruitment approaches, monitoring authorized access and protecting smaller suppliers are therefore sensible complements to prosecution—not claims that the new law alone will stop technology leaks.

A separate proposal attributed to lawmaker Koh Dong-jin would explicitly name foreign corporations and raise the reported three-year minimum sentence to 10 years. It is a proposed further amendment, not the penalty that took effect on September 13.514