The second part of Bill Gertz's series on Chinese military development is focused on how they acquire technology: in large part, from the U.S.
China is stepping up its overt and covert efforts to gather intelligence and technology in the United States, and the activities have boosted Beijing's plans to rapidly produce advanced-weapons systems.Posted by Alan at June 27, 2005 06:35 AM"I think you see it where something that would normally take 10 years to develop takes them two or three," said David Szady, chief of FBI counterintelligence operations.
He said the Chinese are prolific collectors of secrets and military-related information.
The Chinese intelligence services use a variety of methods to spy, including traditional intelligence operations targeting U.S. government agencies and defense contractors.
Additionally, the Chinese use hundreds of thousands of Chinese visitors, students and other nonprofessional spies to gather valuable data, most of it considered "open source," or unclassified information.
China's spies use as many as 3,200 front companies -- many run by groups linked to the Chinese military -- that are set up to covertly obtain information, equipment and technology, U.S. officials say.Recent examples include front businesses in Milwaukee; Trenton, N.J.; and Palo Alto, Calif., Mr. Szady said. In other cases, China has dispatched students, short-term visitors, businesspeople and scientific delegations with the objective of stealing technology and other secrets.
But the problem of Chinese spying is daunting.
"It's pervasive," Mr. Szady said. "It's a massive presence, 150,000 students, 300,000 delegations in the New York area. That's not counting the rest of the United States, probably 700,000 visitors a year. They're very good at exchanges and business deals, and they're persistent."