The Wall Street Journal-20080212-Four Are Charged in Espionage Cases Tied to China
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Four Are Charged in Espionage Cases Tied to China
Full Text (525 words)WASHINGTON -- The Justice Department unveiled charges against a U.S. military analyst and a former Boeing Co. engineer in separate cases that officials said underscore intense economic and military espionage efforts by China in the U.S.
The unrelated cases, filed in Los Angeles and Alexandria, Va., center on allegations that sensitive information about the Space Shuttle and Delta IV rocket programs, as well as U.S. military sales to Taiwan, were exposed to Chinese spies.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation has deployed agents to work with private companies and universities that produce or work on sensitive technology in an effort to improve security, especially over vulnerable computer networks. The government's efforts have met resistance, some from industry and some from within the U.S. government, where free-trade sentiment is strong and there are fears that the U.S. is losing some competitive edge for business in China.
Kenneth Wainstein, assistant attorney general for national security, cited a U.S. intelligence report that asserts China is "among the most aggressive in collecting against sensitive and protected U.S. systems, facilities and development projects, and their efforts are approaching Cold War levels."
Lawyers for the defendants couldn't be reached. A spokesman for the Chinese embassy didn't comment on the allegations.
The Los Angeles case involves a 72-year-old Chinese-born U.S. citizen, Dongfan "Greg" Chung, who had a 30-year career as an engineer for Rockwell International and then Boeing after it acquired Rockwell.
Prosecutors say Mr. Chung passed trade secrets to contacts in the Chinese a viation industry related to the Delta IV rockets, the Space Shuttle and the C-17 military transport plane. He faces charges of committing economic espionage and acting as an unregistered foreign agent.
Government officials have been investigating Mr. Chung since at least 2006. Boeing spokesman Dan Beck said that Boeing isn't a focus of the government's investigation and that the company "cooperated with the government all through" the probe.
In the other case announced yesterday, in Virginia, Gregg Bergersen, a 51-year-old weapons-systems policy analyst at the Pentagon's Defense Security Cooperation Agency, is charged with selling to Chinese agents information on U.S. weapons sales to Taiwan. Two others, a Taiwan resident and a Chinese national, are charged in the case.
According to court documents, FBI agents have recorded conversations between Mr. Bergersen and his Chinese contact in which Mr. Bergersen allegedly let his contact take notes from documents showing U.S. military sales to Taiwan in exchange for an undisclosed amount of cash. According to a transcript of the recordings filed in court, Mr. Bergersen tells his contact, "I'm very, very, very, reticent to let you have it, because it's all classified."
The government has had trouble in the past making these kinds of cases stick. In another recent case, the government eventually settled for violations of export laws, charges that were easier to prove. Yesterday's announcements relied on charges that don't center on direct state-sponsored espionage. In the Chung case, prosecutors are relying on charges that he passed along trade secrets, not classified information. In the Bergersen case, prosecutors allege only that he passed along information "to persons not entitled to receive it."
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Andy Pasztor contributed to this article.
