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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.
I would say that china has many good research engineers to get new technology - but from my time working there I would say that industrial espionage and reverse engineering are perfectly acceptable methods to get new technology over there. I have seen new chips turn up that once decapped and FIB'd were seen to be *exact* copies of designs from the firm I worked for, complete with the same faults - but that's what you get for using a Chinese fab.
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...
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.
Being generally anti-war, I tend to be of the opinion that Roosevelt was right when he said we should walk softly and carry a big stick. That big stick isn't so intimidating when you let your enemy have one of his very own modeled on yours.
well, even if they are stealing rocket technology from the West, they're just getting us back.
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 knowledge through cultural exchange. the sharing of knowledge and technology between cultures has always been a major stimulus for technological & scientific innovation. that's why non-weapons-related technology export restrictions are kinda silly. no developed nation can say that their technological & scientific achievements are the sole work of their nation, and their nation alone. many IP laws are similarly silly as such jealous guarding of knowledge, or "intellectual property," is not only petty but counter-productive to societal progress.
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?
He was just followin Bill Clinton's lead.
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" struck me a particularly flagrant example of classic American ignorance. To wit; There are black people who have never been to America, whos ancestors have never been to America, and who probably never will go to America so long as they live. Many may not even know where America is. Similarly for "Asian Americans".
This kind of Americanization of even very basic things is quite frightening sometimes. It's scary to think just how much of the culture, laws, practices and viewpoints in my own country have their origins in a country with a very different mindset and world view. The politics of Middle America seems to end up in my living room whether I like it or not.
May the Maths Be with you!
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, 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.
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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.
Anyone can "stand up for what they believe", but it takes a very brave individual to change what they believe. - Loundry
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 you let people immigrate. (Mostly joking, of course.)
The other thing that occurs to me, looking around where I work, is that there *is* somewhat of a difference between immigrants and naturally born citizens: all our naturalized or work visa employees have PhD's where I work, and none of our natural-born citizens do.
Nostalgia's not what it used to be.