A Chinese citizen pleaded guilty to stealing high-tech corn seeds from U.S. farm fields, in a case that drew attention for the government’s rare use of a U.S. antispying law to prosecute alleged trade-secrets theft. As WSJ's Jacob Bunge reports:

Mo Hailong, 46, pleaded guilty in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Iowa to participating in a long-running plot to steal genetically pure corn seeds developed by U.S. agribusiness giants Monsanto Co. and DuPont Co. At the time of his arrest in December 2013, Mr. Mo, who has lived in the U.S. since 1998, was a director of international business for Beijing...