SAN FRANCISCO—Tze Chao pleaded guilty in federal court in San Francisco late yesterday afternoon to conspiracy to commit economic espionage, United States Attorney Melinda Haag announced. In pleading guilty, Chao, who was employed by DuPont from 1966 to 2002, admitted that he provided trade secrets concerning DuPont’s proprietary titanium dioxide (TiO2) manufacturing process to companies he knew were controlled by the government of the People’s Republic of China (PRC). Chao admitted that beginning in 2003, the year after he left DuPont, he began consulting for the Pangang Group, a PRC government-controlled company that produces TiO2. According to his plea agreement,...