Physicist Admits Sending Space-Related Military Secrets To China 278
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.
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.
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.
Re:A crime called 'Treason'. (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 EXACTLY what he was doing!
THIS IS TREASON, and HAPPENS WAY TOO OFTEN with little real consequence. EVERY American should be pissed as hell about this, and (in my opinion) a very public example needs to be made EVERY time something like this happens.
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 begin to get a sense of the pervasiveness of this cultural trait.)
Understandably, neither label is a source of pride in the Chinese culture, but as with all cultural stereotypes and epithets, these have some truth in them.
Re:False dichotomy there, bub (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 political system of our adversary). In any case, I'm sure that any information from confessed spies is taken with a grain of salt and verified through other sources wherever possible. At the end of the day I'm sure you can see the wisdom in having a living breathing source of information as opposed to a dead corpse.
Re:False dichotomy there, bub (Score:2, Informative)
Only if China is our Enemy.
;)
I'm sure that move would be great for foreign relations... let's legally define China as our enemy in order to convict someone of treason instead of espionage!!1!
It seems you don't think along those lines, but I thought I'd point out the ramifications for the GP... of course there are plenty of Americans (and people of other nationalities, of course) who believe the Other is always an enemy... but those people are irrational, IMO, and not worth having a discussion with.
Re:Industrial espionage (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 pre-war aerospace prowess. At one time, they made the best fighter jets, the best rockets, and pretty much the best in every engineering and medical field, and after the war they just lost it, as though they were afraid to excel in these fields anymore.
As for the Chinese, I agree with a previous poster that this is more of a case of industrial espionage than actual treason. But, military and industry are intimately connected in China, perhaps more than in the U.S., and any rocket tech that they acquire will almost certainly be put to military use.
The Chinese are so hungry for technology and they are acquiring it so rapidly even as the U.S. declines in industrial and scientific ability that it seems only a matter of time before they basically take over as the world super power, while the U.S. degenerates into a post-industrial welfare state like France or Britain.
If China were a democracy with some real checks and balances, this might be OK, but unfortunately they have not evolved their system to that level yet. Even the U.S. makes mistakes, but the pendulum does swing and there is a sense of accountability that simply doesn't exist in China yet.
Re:Industrial espionage (Score:1, Informative)
I'm not sure I'd call it a defection, however. Nazi Germany was crumbling at the time. There wasn't really anything left to defect from.
Re:It is wrong to generalise but (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 generation Japanese of military age wanted to be sent back to Japan (once we started repatriation from the internment camps) as enlisted in the 442nd, the all-Japanese soldier regiment.
Italians tended to be better, but most were from lower Italy, which missed any good from Il Duce.