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Physicist Admits Sending Space-Related Military Secrets To China
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.
Eh, it's nothing new. But given that certain cultures are more about "honor" and "loyalty" than others are, then why do they let this happen? I find it hard to believe that Chinamen are the only men capable of performing certain engineering duties. I doubt that anybody of American descent would be allowed to see top-secret Chinese data, 20-year citizen or not!
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 industrial espionage rather than national security.
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...
What happened to treason?
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.
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 if you have any doubts as to whether or not this is a country you want having technology that can be used to assist them in becoming a credible player in space on a military footing.
This Physicist should probably be executed or imprisoned for life if there is any way to get such a sentence. In a more honest time, what he did would be considered treason in spirit, if not exactly the letter of the law.
One of the things that keeps us safe, and keeps us from fighting long, protracted wars is the fact that other countries have a damned hard time competing with us technologically on the battlefield. The Chinese have, for a long time, been trying to steal said technology from us. They really ramped it up after the first Persian Gulf War when their soldiers actually got to see what our technology could do when we unleashed a largescale attack on another country with our new weapon systems. 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.
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
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.
Kwisatz Haderach
Sell the spice to CHOAM
This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
Seriously, what excuse does Slashdot have for not supporting Unicode yet? It's 2008. Not to mention that it's a pain to use on mobile devices (and can't moderate from Opera Mini) and unnecessarily heavy on bandwidth. One would expect better of the archetypal geek site.
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.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
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.