I appreciate your comments, but 'spy' is definitely the correct term for someone who acts on behalf of another country/company, even if only through a minor/informal/temporary arrangement. That's actually how most spying is done - 'assets'/'informants' rather than 'agents'. A lot of Chinese espionage is incredibly informal.

There's also a lot of other evidence for smuggled GPUs

I do wonder, not knowing exactly how this came to light, exactly how it came to light. Not that the the actions, if true, aren't bad. But why and when it broke that is interesting.