China Refutes Allegation about Stealing Intelligence

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Tuesday, August 12, 2003

China Refutes Allegation about Stealing Intelligence

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In the United States, topics concerning China can invariably become the focus of special concerns of certain media and politicians. "Chinese spies" have become a hot topic in these days following the "theory on threat of the RMB (people's currency) exchange rate". On August 3 AP quoted David Szady, deputy head of FBI (Federal Investigation Bureau) in charge of anti-espionage affairs, as saying that FBI maintained that China would be the greatest spying threat to the United States in the next 10-15 years.

Szady claims that currently China has over 3,000 "covering companies" in the United States, their real aim was to engage in espionage work. Among the thousands upon thousands of visiting Chinese scholars, students and businessmen who come to the United States every year, "many" undertake the task of intelligence work, things they want spread across the United States, not confined only to the embassy or consulates. This is a gigantic work.

This came not singly, but in pairs. A Washington Times report on August 5 said that a report of the Pentagon pointed out that two Chinese students studying in the United States provided the US national defense technologies they had stolen to Chinese military departments, this technology could help China research and produce a kind of rare metal applicable to sensors and a variety of weapons. The report said this metal, named Terfenol-D, was developed by US navy at a cost of millions of US dollars. The report added that a Chinese student, who is studying in the US Iowa State University, once worked at the campus Ames Laboratory under the US Energy Department. The report charged that a company from west China purchased the material from the two Chinese students. One senior FBI official even asserted that the Chinese government was carrying out actions with concentrated objective and clear orientation and order, so as to obtain US nuclear weaponry and technology as well as precision military technology used in missile defense system and electronic war.

FBI uses this opportunity to recruit numerous secret service personnel of Chinese origin

As early as February this year, a New York Times report said that considering the Chinese government bought over the US sensitive science and technology stolen by students and exchange scholars, so FBI launched a large-scale plan to incite defection in the second half of 2002 and absorb from the campus Chinese students studying nuclear physics to act as "go-betweens". FBI's defection-instigation plan was set for half a year, it aims mainly to absorb Chinese students studying nuclear physics, nanotechnology, astrodynamics and other fields, not students studying history or languages. The authority expressed the hope that the bought-over Chinese students should get to know what science-technology information China wanted to obtain, and even planned to allow these students to continue to collect intelligence for the United States after their return to China in the future.

Mr. Yang Jueyong once served as the dean of the Oriental Languages Department of Hawaii University between 1962-72. He recalled that far back to that time FBI called on him, hoping he would recommend more students, majoring in Chinese and Japanese languages to act as FBI's secret service personnel. Local people of Chinese origin told the reporter that FBI's supervision over foreign students in the United States was conducted mainly through foreign-students management institutions in various universities, at the same time, "go-betweens" are developed from among students. In the Spring Festival of this year, FBI even advertised in local Chinese newspapers for youths of Chinese descendents who had the academic degree of law science and could speak English and Chinese fluently to join its secret service ranks.

FBI's view is groundless statement

FBI's argument that China would be the greatest spying threat to the United States has aroused strong repercussions from the Chinese embassy in the United States, local Chinese-funded enterprises and Chinese students. Sun Weide, spokesperson for the Chinese embassy, said FBI's charge of China with engaging in espionage activities is groundless, one simplest fact is that up to the end of last year, there were only 681 Chinese companies registered and operated in the United States, the possibility that 3,000 Chinese firms engaging in espionage activities simply did not exist. While being interviewed by reporters, secretary-general Zhou Qun with the "Chinese Chamber of Commerce in the United States" formed by Chinese-funded enterprises in the United States said as far as he knew, there were only a dozen or so Chinese-funded enterprises in the New York City, all of them were large State-owned enterprises, they are now in the initial stage of development in the United States, there are too many business affairs for them to attend to, many staff members were ordered to return home before they had made clear even about what America was like, so it is sheer nonsense to allege that they are engaging in espionage work in the United States.

Chinese Student Federation chairman Zhou Jikun in New York district said currently there is a total of 50,000 Chinese students studying in the United States, this figure, plus those who remain to work in the country after their graduation, adds up to around 200,000 people. These folks, aged basically at around 20 and having just left Chinese campuses, can hardly have any relations with the Chinese government. If hundreds of thousands of Chinese students studying in the United States and scholars are indiscriminately lumped together as suspects, obviously this is the evil influence of the Cold War mentality.

Mr. Yang Jueyong said that Chinese-Americans, like the descendants of other minority nationalities, are an important component of the US society. He said espionage activities have long been existing since ancient times, if there are really Chinese who have committed crimes of espionage in the United States, they should naturally be punished according to law, but if race is taken as the criterion for differentiating whether one is suspected of espionage, that will not only hurt Sino-US relations, it will do all harm and no good to America's own development, the case of Wen Ho Lee is an example.

Source: People's Daily Online, reprinted in the Global Times

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