A congressionally mandated commission on China and security issues will
investigate Beijing's approach to obtaining economically valuable data from
the U.S. government, including the Securities and Exchange Commission, the
commission's chairman said yesterday.
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"The commission is likely to be alert to new Chinese targets of opportunity
for economic, industrial and militarily useful espionage," said Roger
Robinson, who took over as chairman of the U.S.-China Security Review
Commission last month.
Mr. Robinson, a former National Security Council staff member during the
Reagan administration, made the remarks in response to a report in
yesterday's editions of The Washington Times of an SEC employee being
dismissed after improperly passing sensitive data on U.S. computer
companies to China.
The employee, Mylene Chan, left the SEC in July after co-workers found she
had improperly sent sensitive data from within the SEC's computer and
online-services division to Shanghai.
Miss Chan, reportedly a Chinese national, said she left the SEC for
personal reasons and that one of her jobs at the commission was to work
with Chinese securities commissions.
She said that "in the course of that, I provided a small number of SEC
materials mistakenly, all of which were retrieved as soon as I learned of
the mistake."
"It's troubling to learn that a soft, but sensitive, agency like the SEC
may have been penetrated," Mr. Robinson said in an interview. "If so, it
would herald a more sophisticated approach to economic and dual-use espionage."
Mr. Robinson said the commission "raised attention to economic and
industrial espionage in its first annual report to Congress in July and
will continue to accord this issue serious treatment."
The review commission stated in a report made public in July that China's
government has an aggressive program to collect sensitive U.S. technology
to apply to its own economic and military modernization program.
The report said a "principal means China is using to channel scientific and
technological information to China is through Chinese foreign nationals
studying and working in the U.S."
"China is covertly acquiring the more sensitive technologies it cannot buy
on the open market through a targeted collection program and espionage
initiatives," the report stated.
The commission report said more needs to be done to keep tabs on Chinese
nationals seeking to acquire U.S. technology.
"The commission believes that the lack of oversight of Chinese foreign
nationals, as well as those of many other countries, studying and working
in sensitive disciplines can have serious national security implications,"
the report said.
"The transfer of 'know-how' could potentially be applied to China's
military industrial base," the report said. "Consequently, the commission
concludes that increased oversight, review, screening and tracking of
Chinese foreign nationals studying and working in the United States is
necessary."
A U.S. government security specialist said China could gain valuable
commercial and technology data from someone with access to internal
information at the SEC.
"This case begs for a whole new look at SEC hiring practices and
security-minded safeguards," the official said.
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20021112-352330.htm
SEC Chinese takeout.Fortune cookies supplied by P.Trei.
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http://www.cicentre.com/
MORE
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Saddam�s Surveillance
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Big year for Spooks.I left a few out.
