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Physicist Admits Sending Space-Related Military Secrets To China
Posted by
timothy
on Tue Nov 18, 2008 10:21 AM
from the he-was-young-he-needed-the-money dept.
from the he-was-young-he-needed-the-money dept.
piemcfly writes "Chinese-born physicist Shu Quan-Sheng Monday pleaded guilty before a US court to violating the Arms Export Control Act by illegally exporting American military space know-how to China. The 68-year-old naturalized US citizen, pictured here on his company profile, admitted handing over the design of fueling systems between 2003 and 2007. Also, in 2003 he illegally exported a document with the impossibly long name of 'Commercial Information, Technical Proposal and Budgetary Officer — Design, Supply, Engineering, Fabrication, Testing & Commissioning of 100m3 Liquid Hydrogen Tank and Various Special Cryogenic Pumps, Valves, Filters and Instruments.' This contained the design of liquid hydrogen tanks for space launch vehicles. He also admitted to a third charge of bribing Chinese officials to the tune of some 189,300 dollars for a French space technology firm."
Here's the FBI press release regarding Shu's plea.
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Industrial espionage (Score:2, Insightful)
Unless the FBI is simply foaming at the mouth to create FUD and bungle this like they bungle everything else. It's more of a matter of indus
Re:Industrial espionage (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Industrial espionage (Score:5, Insightful)
If you can't get good scientists internally then you are putting your secure projects at risk.
Umm, wasn't he a naturalized American citizen? Or do you mean to suggest that it's a risk to employ anyone who wasn't a natural-born citizen on secure projects? This traitorous asshole notwithstanding, most immigrants to this country are fiercely patriotic. You tend to have an appreciation for the United States if you immigrate here from a poorer/more oppressive country -- whereas those of us who were born here tend to take what we have for granted.
Parent
Re:Industrial espionage (Score:4, Funny)
It's not exactly rocket science, as Werner Von Braun once said.
Parent
Re:Industrial espionage (Score:4, Insightful)
Not only him: more than one third of American Nobel Prize winners are immigrants [state.gov]. Many of our best and brightest, and, as people who have worked in agriculture and construction can tell you, many of the hardest-working and most dedicated, are immigrants.
Parent
Re:Industrial espionage (Score:4, Insightful)
The entire country is founded on immigration obviously, aside from the natives who got mostly wiped out that is.
Believing immigration is bad for America is just navel gazing stupidity. There are no 20th generation American Citizens, from long lines of American ancestry. There are however thousands of years of Chinese dynastic and other histories.
To cut off immigration is to say "we have enough people now" since everyone else is recently immigrated too (from a global historical perspective). There is no otherwise functional difference between the immigrant and the naturally born citizen.
Who bombed the FBI building in Oklahoma after all? A chinaman? Maybe a Russian spy? Yeah.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I agree entirely with you, but would like to quibble on one minor point. The first guy to bear my last name on North American soil got here 15 generations ago, while two of my grandparents escaped from pre-WWII Germany, so I'm fairly typical. But I dated a lovely woman a few years back whose ancestors were all Cherokee or Paiute, as far as she knew, so while they obviously weren't American citizens back 8000 years ago, they have a lot, a whole, whole lot, to say about what happens to the neighborhood when
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Correct, someone is misusing "defect" here. The Soviets were more fearsome enemies than the Allies. The German scientists obviously concluded that helping the Allies in the post-WWII era would be better for Germany than helping the USSR (or doing nothing).
Indeed, history shows that Von Braun and the others did the right thing by siding with the U.S. Western Germany was protected by the American nuclear umbrella and allowed to prosper while its Soviet half withered.
Germany has never really recovered its p
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
He's probably as close as you could get to a possible Manchurian Candidate (one parent foreign, raised a large part of "formative" years on foreign soil), and yet I doubt you'll find anyone who would possibly think that way.
Unless you watch Fox News ;)
Re:Industrial espionage (Score:5, Interesting)
In order for it to work, you have to have loyalties somewhere else. If you are elected as the most powerful man in the world, I'm not sure what on earth would tempt you to "sell out", particularly to some dirt ball in the middle east. If you're crooked, you have all the power in the world to set up your own nice retirement...I think we can think of a few examples of that.
For a poor American scientist, there's a lot to be had back in China, or pretty much anywhere else, whether you are of chinese descent or not. We produce so few scientists and engineers, because the rewards are so pathetic for the capacity of work being done. Within our own country, various silly IP and anti-workforce laws protect investors from our knowledge and abilities moving to competitors easily (also forcing salaries down). But outside of our borders? Not so much. Reverse brain drain, and it's friend "espionage" are real problems. All we need is money, and we can recreate anything we've done before, and probably do it better.
In the 8 years I've been employed, this is the 3rd time I've heard of naturalized Chinese citizens sending back design data to the motherland. Having known personally one of the people later convicted, loyalty to "the party" had nothing to do with it. He was disgruntled at being laid off, believed in his product (but not his company), and was sending design files to his buddy back home so they could start their own business. Illegal, yes. Seditious? Not intentionally.
The saddest part is, that's how the US got its foot in the door. The British didn't really care for us all that much back then, and wanted us kept out of the loop, but had much the same problem with its industry as we do now. Enter a lowly engineer who had know how, but not $
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Slater)
It's a shame when history repeats itself, particularly since the US was founded on better ideals than China. What on earth do we stand to gain by promoting a country that, other than rabid capitalism (with a phony communist mouthpiece), is the anti-thesis to our way of life?
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
It's a shame when history repeats itself, particularly since the US was founded on better ideals than China.
Is "freedom and liberty for all!" really better ideals than "wealth and security for all!"? I think they both just cater to different value systems and happened to be convenient for rabble-rousing at the time.
Re:Industrial espionage (Score:5, Funny)
I don't know, man. The name of that project sure indicates he was born for government work:
> the impossibly long name of 'Commercial Hydrogen Instrumentation Nomenclature
> Affairs Reacquisition Officer -- Onboard Liquid Supplies Using Special
> Distillation Resevoir of Oleaginous Oxygen Lysimetrification System'
He worked on that? Lol.
Zomg, look:
Commercial
Hydrogen
Instrumentation
Nomenclature
Affairs
Reacquisition
Officer --
Onboard
Liquid
Supplies
Using
Special
Distillation
Resevoir of
Oleaginous
Oxygen
Lysimetrification
System
Parent
Re:Industrial espionage (Score:4, Insightful)
So while someone who has been in this country for 20+ years may have the flag flying in their yard and be all "Go USA!" that doesn't change the fact that it would still be easier to get them to give up secrets than a US born.
And that's because natural-born citizens never sell secrets to enemies [wikipedia.org], right?
I agree that having families in oppressive countries is a liability—but, surely the U.S. government can help remove those liabilities (by shortening their immigration process) so that they can hire a qualified man for the job?
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
This is beyond insulting.
I need you to hear another perspective. I can't speak for all foreign-born citizens, obviously, but I would like to at least share my own. I hope you'll listen for a moment.
Like this scientist guy, I wasn't born in the US -- I'm a person of Asian descent, born and raised in Taiwan (which may or may not be a part of China proper, depending on who you ask). My first thought when I saw the headline? "Fucking traitor!"
According to TFA, this guy not only betrayed US secrets to the Chi
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
This is the problem with not properly promoting scientific education within American schools. If you can't get good scientists internally then you are putting your secure projects at risk.
It's a mixed bag. For every foreign-born turncoat you can find, I can find you one who is loyal to the US because he has a huge beef with whoever is running the show back home. Likewise, for every loyal native-born son of liberty I can show you a homegrown turncoat. Look at all the moles in the CIA, corn-fed Americans.
The moral of the story is that there's no rule of thumb to go by on who you can trust, you need to suspect everyone and not make theft any easier than it has to be. Most of these cases, nobody
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
I find it hard to believe that Chinamen ...
Also, Ethanol-fueled, 'Chinamen' is not the preferred nomenclature. Asian Americans, please.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Dude, the chinaman is not the issue here!
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
This reminds me of a pretty egregious faux-pas in the character customization menus in the recent Fallout game. Basically, amid the extensive options available for tweaking your character, there was initially (right after gender) a "race" option. The options were something like:
1) Caucasian
2) Asian
3) African American
Coming from outside the US, this ranks as one of my top ten "WTF?" moments in video gaming. I knew that Americans were fairly insular, but to define an entire racial group as "XXXican American"
Re:Spare me (Score:5, Funny)
Chinaman is a direct translation of äåoeä. When in "Greater China", I get damned tired of constantly being called å-åoeä and éè±ä".
I agree, those slurs are tired and racist. Plus, it's also difficult to tell if someone is talking to you or screaming in agony.
Parent
False dichotomy there, bub (Score:3, Insightful)
If the Chinese got ahold of that new laser weapon system from Northrop Grumman, I doubt you would make such a neat little dichotomy there between industrial espionage and national security.
The Chinese government is actually quite hostile to the United States and many other countries. Just look at what they're doing to Africa [codemonkeyramblings.com]
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I can already predict that some snarky asshole is going to come along and say "long, protracted wars like Iraq." The answer is no. Try the sort of wars where both parties are actually on a generally equal footing, where hundreds of thousands, maybe millions, of soldiers end up dead. One of the reasons that governments like the Chinese government don't risk war with us is that they know that with our currently superior equipped and trained military, we can inflict devastating and likely very disproportionate casualties on them. If they are successful at industrial espionage, they close the gap there between our respective militaries and can come much closer to going toe-to-toe with our troops any day of the week.
1. Our military is over-extended already. It's unlikely we even have enough spare troops to invade Guam again at this point.
2. There's no possible scenario I can think of that would see us facing down China in a ground battle.
3. Economic warfare seems to be a far smarter arena to be engaged in than direct military conflict. And they have us over the barrel in that regard.
4. There's a difference between a bombing campaign and a ground invasion of given territory. All the high tech in the world doesn't count
Re:False dichotomy there, bub (Score:4, Informative)
what he did would be considered treason in spirit, if not exactly the letter of the law.
Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort. No Person shall be convicted of Treason unless on the Testimony of two Witnesses to the same overt Act, or on Confession in open Court.
Maybe even under the letter of the law. 'Aid and Comfort'
One of the most effective ways for us to prevent a war is to make betraying military applicable technologies to their government an offense that most of these guys would never commit because the punishment is so severe.
They'll still do it. People commit espionage for a variety of reasons. And the punishments are already pretty severe -- personally I'd rather be executed than spend the rest of my natural life in 23 hour a day solitary confinement at Florence ADX. The reason that most spies don't get the death penalty is because they agree to a life sentence in exchange for revealing how much information they gave away.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
If you want to consider China an enemy, and think "Aid and Comfort" is enough to convict for treason then you'd better start by locking up the board of Wal-Mart. Then have a look at the contents of your house and wardrobe and decide whether to turn yourself in.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
And you can trust that information 100%
Eh, it depends on the underlying motivation they had for committing espionage. The FBI had something called 'MICE' during the Cold War -- Money, Ideology, Coercion, and Ego -- it was meant to explain the reasonings behind why someone would commit espionage.
Someone who committed espionage because they were blackmailed (coercion) by the foreign power would be less likely to lie about their activities when caught than someone who committed it for idealogical reasons (i.e: they actually believe in the politica
Re: (Score:2)
During WWII the US had issue with people of German decent sabotaging aircraft at Brewster aircraft. It didn't do much harm since Brewster made such bad aircraft to start with.
It think this like most things has to do with individuals and not race.
The real issue is that to many foreign born and raised people are coming to the US and then becoming engineers.
Outsourcing (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Outsourcing (Score:4, Funny)
Naa, for rocket science I'd outsource to India.
Parent
A crime called 'Treason'. (Score:5, Insightful)
Only a few years ago, this would be called 'TREASON' and possible punishment could be death, but more likely life imprisonment.
What say he goes free...
Re:A crime called 'Treason'. (Score:5, Insightful)
Meh, it's not like rockets can be weaponized or anything.
On a more serious not, this stuff is all for liquid hydrogen rockets - that wouldn't make a very effective weapon... it does a fine job in the Space Shuttle main engine, but keeping rockets that run on liquid hydrogen flight-ready is pretty expensive. AFAIK, most of the US military rockets are solid fuel.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
well, even if they are stealing rocket technology from the West, they're just getting us back [wikipedia.org].
the Chinese were the first to invent rockets, which were later stolen by the Mongols, who then spread it to the Arabs, who eventually spread it to the West. i guess that makes us even now.
most scientific & technological advancements are built on top of the work done by previous scientists/inventors/engineers. and the history of human technological/scientific progress is essentially the story of the spread of kn
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Agreed wholeheartedly. Treason is a very appropriate designation here, IMHO.
He is a US citizen who used that privilege to gain access to secure information and willfully sold us out! His actions profoundly harmed our national interests, diminished our technological advantages over our adversaries, caused immeasurable economic harm, and may very well cost the lives of countless numbers of our fellow countrymen in future conflicts!!! Furthermore, in this case there is EVERY reason to believe that he knew E
Only 10 years? (Score:2, Insightful)
What happened to treason?
Individuals can't but corporations can? (Score:2, Insightful)
I wonder how many corporations , universities and other organizations routinely share and profit from the global movement of information? When was the last time you saw a multinational corporation become the target for these types of investigations?
Don't get me wrong, I'm not defending the guy, personally, I just think all this secrecy is stupid, useless and evil.
Of course... (Score:2)
In Capitalist China... (Score:2)
In Capitalist China, Rocket Fires You!
hmmm. (Score:3, Interesting)
As always I am interested in this from a general viewpoint - I mean how many hours R&D is worth the hassle of paying for? obviously if something has been developed for many years and represents significant innovation it would be worthwhile, but they seem to be after anything.
It reminds me of the Tupelov 144 and Bakinor shuttle - both of which were uncannily close to planes developed elsewhere...
Re:hmmm. (Score:5, Informative)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tu-144 [wikipedia.org]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buran_(spacecraft) [wikipedia.org]
Interesting reads both. As I understand it the aerodynamic shapes were copied from photos, but the guts were completely different.
Parent
There is an old saying in China... (Score:3, Informative)
We Chinese have an old saying that dates back to the Opium War. Back then we were called the "Sick Man of the Far East", because of the number of people addicted to opium which the British had imported. Later on it became "Copycat of the Far East" because of the many, many ways that China tries to imitate the West through technology, culture, fashion, music, and so on. (Think of just how much software and music are copied and distributed without any regard to proper royalties and licensing and you can be
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
ANd it will not be population. It will be about water and resources
Well, population comes into play because Russia has a declining population and the largest territory on Earth. How do you hold onto that territory in the long run if your birth rate is below the replacement rate?
but... but... (Score:2)
Information wants to be free, man. He was just freeing it from its cruel imprisonment by the US government.
Especially impressive is that he's apparently willing to take its place in order to do so.
Airport security FTW! (Score:2)
So they finally managed to get someone with the wonderful airport security system!
The odds against him being caught are huge (Score:4, Insightful)
I can't claim any personal experience with counter-intelligence but everything I've read on the matter makes the feebs out to be completely incompetent jackasses. Potential intelligence assets will walk in the front door and the FBI and CIA couldn't manage to recognize them for what they were. It seems like the operative rules are along the lines of:
1. First, don't fuck up.
2. Doing things increases the chances of fucking up; the less you do, the less likely you fuck up, unless your fuck up was not doing anything.
3. Your primary enemy is other intelligence services competing for your budget and turf. Cut those bastards off at the knees.
4. In your spare time, see if any foreign agents might be up to something.
For a case in point, Operation Pastorius.
http://www.damninteresting.com/?p=949 [damninteresting.com]
German defectors walk right up to the FBI and the G-men had to be beaten over the head before they realized something was up. And Hoover, ugh, don't even get me started on that bastard. The Brits couldn't stand working with that transvestite media whore in WWII. No sooner would a German agent be sniffed out and the FBI would roll him up and bring in the pressmen so German intel could find out their operation was blown and there would be enough details blabbed to the press so the Germans would know how they were sniffed out. The Brit approach was to figure out who the agents were, then keep a close eye on who they associated with so they could discover the larger spy network. They would also use these agents to unwittingly feed bogus intel back into German hands. That that was all too subtle for the swinging dick approach favored by American intel.
What "military space know-how"? (Score:4, Interesting)
What "military space know-how"? No US weapons system uses liquid hydrogen tanks.
The Saturn V used liquid hydrogen, and the Shuttle does, but those are NASA programs. Unmanned boosters are usually solids, or the old standard, liquid oxygen and kerosene, like the V2 from WWII. ICBMs have been all solid-fuel since the 1970s. And according to the Outer Space Treaty [state.gov], the US isn't supposed to have weapons in space.
There's no military threat. The only reason to limit the export of liquid hydrogen tank technology is to slow down the Chinese manned space program.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Fixed it for you.
Because the Chinese would never use what they have, rather than exactly copying an American design that they will not have all of until years from now.
Re: (Score:2)
It will be a worldwide effort. Right after China stops treating its citizens as disposable. Look how China treated their farmers during the Olympics (cutting them off from water so they could have water fountains in the athletic village).
Re:String Him UP! (Score:5, Insightful)
The real problem, the thing that makes China scary and has people talking about treason and execution in this case is this: deep down we're afraid we've lost our technology balls.
It's been 36 years since America has been to the Moon. An entire generation has been born since then, and have even had their own children. I remember watching Neil Armstrong take that first step on the Moon, an event that to my children that is like my parents talking about Pearl Harbor is to me. Space, to them, is a place where movies are set. The Space Shuttle program was a disappointment, and the Mars initiative is a transparent boondoggle with no significant program milestones on the calendar.
In my lifetime, I have watched the leveraged buyout of the American culture of invention. When I was a kid, America was a country that made things. Of the course of my adulthood, it became something remarkable when a thing was actually made here. Then we were a country that invented things that were made elsewhere, and that is still true, but for how long? The idea of free trade is that countries do what "they do best"; it's a good idea in theory, but in practice our role in the world economy has become to spend the accumulated gains of generations, to send investment overseas.
The idea that we can somehow protect our preeminence in the world by hoarding our past accomplishments is pathetic. Oh, I won't deny that this kind of thing doesn't help China somewhat, otherwise why would they do it? But if you could wave a magic wand and make all these sort things go away, it wouldn't make much difference at all.
China is pursuing technological and economic development, whereas we have become complacent. We have been acting in the last two decades as if national preeminence is not simply a legacy but a birthright.
So we get all worked up about cases like this, because it gives us an excuse for our own lack of initiative and vision. We have elected leaders who pandered to our laziness and anti-intellectualism, and mocked the thoughtful as out of touch, the visionary as insane. We have embraced hypocrisy, insisting the poor should shoulder their economic responsibilities, which is fine by me, but all the while demanding middle class prerogatives as our entitlement. I remember watching a movie in which people were singing that things were so wonderful in America because it is "God's Country", and cringing at the idea that some poor bastard in the third world was watching his children starve because God doesn't like him as much as he likes us. That kind of thinking is more in style today than ever.
Oh, I won't be surprised if lots of people want to hang this guy. That's what passes these days for "feel good" politics.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
> It might be interesting to look at German-Americans in 1930s
Bundists were a problem, until war was actually declared. Then, the majority became as patriotic as anyone else. Of course, the worst ones went home "when the Fuehrer called all good Germans back to the Fatherland." to quote Band Of Brothers (at least the movie - haven't read most of the book, yet). Mostly providing public information, suitably correlated, rather than "secret plans" or classified military info.
Also, as many 1st and 2nd gene
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
-10 years per count violation of AECA, and 5 years per count violation of FCPA?!?!?!?
Dude, it's not like he was selling pot or anything horrendous like that.