It’s good news that President Trump is working out a trade deal with Red China that hopefully doesn’t screw Americans for a change. But at least as concerning has been the theft of intellectual property that has been going on for years.
As Lou Dobbs remarked on his CNN show in 2007, “Three thousand front companies we know of, Chinese front companies, trying to steal American industrial secrets, in addition to the effort to steal U.S. technology.”
It’s crazy for America to continue admitting Chinese immigrants and students as if there were no danger from such naive openness. Of course the internet makes long-distance theft easier, but there’s nothing like in-person spying to locate and steal valuable information even in our connected age.
Fortunately there is attention now being paid to the Chinese spy threat, according to author Bill Gertz, who recently published the book Deceiving the Sky: Inside Communist China’s Drive for Global Supremacy.
‘Economic espionage’: Special DOJ unit cracks down on China’s illicit activities, by Bill Gertz, Washington Times, January 8, 2020
The Justice Department’s special China unit is aggressively prosecuting technology theft and other illicit activities by Beijing’s spies and government officials, a senior department official said in an interview.
China was implicated in more than 80% of all economic espionage cases brought by the Justice Department since 2012, and more than 60% of all trade secrets theft cases were linked to Beijing’s aggressive spying and acquisition programs, U.S. officials said.
Those activities involve traditional human and cyber intelligence gathering operations as well as what officials term “nontraditional” spying: the use of students, business people and other nonprofessional collectors of intelligence.
“It’s an objective fact that the number of economic espionage investigations has increased dramatically in recent years,” Adam Hickey, deputy assistant attorney general in the Justice Department’s national security division, told The Washington Times.
“That could be a function of us seeing more or the private sector reporting more. It also could suggest that China is doing more,” said Mr. Hickey, a key official in a program called the China Initiative.
China’s efforts also involve purchases of American companies, a noncriminal matter but one involving Justice Department officials who are part of the Treasury Department-led Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States. Congress has passed reform measures strengthening regulatory procedures used to control Chinese investments that could harm national security.
At the Federal Communications Commission, Justice Department officials help counter Chinese electronic spying in the United States through a group called Team Telecom.
Attorney General William Barr recently backed the FCC decision announced in November to ban the use of telecommunications gear in the United States made by Chinese tech giant Huawei Technologies over electronic spying concerns. (Continues)
