Earlier this July, the San Francisco Chronicle reported the stir among the Chinese American community caused by FBI placing small ads in San Francisco-based Chinese language newspapers looking to recruit informants.
The ads read in part that FBI was interested in talking to individuals with information about intelligence matters with the potential to harm our country. The ad went on to say, “We especially welcome anyone with information on China’s State Security Bureau.”
Since then, sensational articles about the FBI and espionage from China have rippled across America including front page articles in USA Today. The common thread seemed to be that Chinese spies have infiltrated every walks of the American society. Yet actual cases cited to support the imagery of rampant spying were invariably less than meet the eye.
Despite running ads only in ethnic papers, FBI spokesman reassured members of the media, "This is very similar to what we do in every aspect of our operation -- identify individuals who have information." No one asked the FBI as to why their ads were not placed in the mainstream where the solicitation would reach a much larger audience.
Last summer, in a BBC interview, the FBI agent in charge of Silicon Valley had no trouble identifying China as the major threat. Don Pryzbyla was quoted as saying, “The majority are coming from China. They are using a shot-gun approach, flooding the Silicon Valley with engineers and scientists.”
"The Chinese have found success in obtaining the technology essentially through stealing. Once successful they'll send more people over to do the same thing," Pryzbyla goes on the say. Given that mindset, FBI is merely acting on their belief. Namely, they need to stop a massive network of Chinese spies running wild in Silicon Valley.
Of course, the FBI has a long history of regarding China as America’s foremost enemy dating back to J. Edgar Hoover, the founding director of the bureau. Hoover popularized the idea that China conducted espionage differently relying on the so-called “grains of sand” approach to gathering intelligence.
According to this theory, every ethnic Chinese could be a potential spy, gathering tidbits of information to send them back to Beijing where they were assembled and re-constituted into devastating secrets. (Imagine some group toiling in the basement of the Public Security Bureau patiently pasting column-inches of information collected from the transom and wham, secrets of nanotechnology unveiled.) The impracticality of this inefficient way of spying is obvious to those working in the technology industry, but apparently not to the FBI.
Whether dealing with one of its own employees or a suspect, the FBI holds the Chinese American to a different standard. To the FBI, all Chinese are perpetual foreigners and are presumed guilty until proven innocent--matters not whether the person is American born or first generation, if the person is American citizen or a foreign national from China.
Katrina Leung was FBI's highly prized asset for many years but once the bedroom romp with her handler, JJ Smith, was exposed, she was quickly branded a double agent. Code named “Parlor Maid,” she was the subject of the PBS Frontline expose on national TV but in the end, she was released from custody and all charges related to spying dismissed.
The Denise Woo case was even more remarkable. Woo was a highly commended FBI agent when she was asked by the special agent in charge, the same JJ Smith, to spy on another Chinese American.
She reported back that the suspect was an American born Chinese that spoke no Chinese and have not been any closer to China than Hawaii. But, she reported, the reliability of the informer pointing his finger at the Chinese American was shaky and may have another agenda. In response to Woo’s report, a chagrined FBI decided to indict her with 5 felony counts for allegedly abetting an enemy agent. Her case closed recently with her pleading to a misdemeanor charge to get on with her life.
Dr. Wen Ho Lee, then employed at Los Alamos, was in solitary confinement for nine months based on FBI evidence. The case blew up when the FBI agent in charge could not substantiate the charges under cross examination and had to attribute inconsistencies in his testimony to “honest mistakes.” The appalled presiding judge, in an unprecedented gesture, apologized to Lee on behalf of the United States government before dismissing the case.
The FBI will go to any length to get a conviction. Recently they caught Chi Mak red handed, ready to send back to China a CD of his own papers. Since the papers were already in the public domain, they couldn’t charge him as a master spy, as represented to the media, but for failing to register as an agent for China.
The FBI has a habit of sensationalize each case involving Chinese Americans and seemed not at all embarrassed when the outcome of their cases ends in a whimper. They just demonize the Chinese Americans further by attributing the lack of success to the slipperiness of their suspects.
A question we may well ask: Given their bias and prejudices, how much confidence do we have that the FBI possess the clear-headed objectivity to counter terrorists and protect America's homeland?
Thursday, July 26, 2007
Friday, June 8, 2007
Tangshan promises to play a key role in China’s future
Before Shanghai （上海）, there was Tangshan （唐山）; after Pudong （浦东）, there will be Caofeidian （曹妃店）. This statement neatly encapsulates China’s past, present and future in economic development.
In the late 19th century, Li Hongzhang （李鸿璋）, a senior official of a decaying imperial court ruling a China repeatedly pummeled by the western powers, selected Tangshan as the first site for modern industrial development. Tangshan had the advantage of proximity to coal, iron ore and seaport. Organized mining began there in 1878. First locomotive engine in China was built there, first cement made there and first standard gauge railway laid there. Government leaders, including Dr. Sun Yat-sen （孙中山） who overthrew the Manchu dynasty, regularly conducted inspection tours to Tangshan. It was the place to be seen in a way Shanghai is today.
Tangshan was the site of a 7.8 Richter scale earthquake with the epic center right beneath the heart of the city in July 1976. The city was leveled. As much as one-quarter of the population perished in the pre-dawn quake. Officials told us that Beijing’s Zhongnanhai （中南海） heard about it within minutes by radio from some hero who stood by his station to continue to broadcast the disaster despite tremors and shaking buildings. Another band of men jumped onto their truck and careened their way to Beijing to report in person.
Zhongnanhai mobilized the PLA （解放军）who descended to the devastated area and rescued 450,000 dazed survivors within first 20 hours. They went to Tangshan in such haste that first arrivals did not bring shovels and dug with their bare hands. Some with fingers so raw that they saw exposed finger bones. They eventually recovered 130,000 injured which had to be divided and flown to hospitals in other city centers, some as far as Guangzhou （广州）. We actually met one survivor, now a government official, who was treated for three months in a Xian （西安） hospital. He survived by jumping out of his 2nd floor bedroom before the building came down. There were virtually no survivors who did not lose one or more members of their immediate family. Some 4300 orphans were collected and about 700 had no related kin to take them and were adopted by others in China.
Besides the rescue effort, planes repeated swooped down and disinfected the devastated area with chemicals for the next ten days. The result was that not a fly could be found and there were no case of disease outbreak. How did the living take to the exposure? One Mr. Han, a master of local shadow puppet show, said, "Look at me, I am 76 and I do not suffer from any after effects." He actually looked real young for 76. Before the shock of the earthquake hit, he told of first hearing a rumble followed by brilliant flashes of light which he called diguang（地光).
Tangshan has been rebuilt and there is nothing remain of the old Tangshan except a museum has been built to memorialize the catastrophe and one building that toppled was preserved. The building was a library of Hebei Polytechnic University （河北理工大学） just completed and had not been occupied when the earthquake struck. The building was of special interest because three different kinds of earthquake damage can be seen from one location. One part of the building flopped side ways. The second floor of another part of the building folded right on top of the first and became the ground floor. I can't recall the third kind of failure.
As we toured this display and the museum, we were making mental contrast with the Katrina experience. The key difference was that Tangshan had no warning of the devastation about to be visited on the city while New Orleans had days to brace itself. It took China about a decade to rebuild Tangshan. The relative strength of China's economy was considerably weaker than the U.S. in 2005 when Katrina struck.
At the time of Tangshan’s 19th century industrialization, Shanghai was forcibly opened wide by the Europeans and became a cosmopolitan city associated with sin and decadence. Today, of course, Shanghai is the crown jewel symbolizing the nexus of China’s miraculous economic recovery and breathtaking growth. Shanghai’s success has been in a major part due to the development of Pudong, formerly a sleepy piece of farm land across the Huangpu River （黄浦江） many times larger than the established commercial area of Puxi （浦西）across the Huangpu.
By now, Pudong’s decade-long transformation into a commercial and industrial hub is well known to the world. The latest investment is the offshore Yangshan （杨山） deepwater port facility based on islands connected to the Pudong mainland by the 20-mile long Donghai Bridge （东海桥） over open water. Spectacular as that may be, Tangshan’s Caofeidian promises to top Pudong in years to come. Caofeidian is a sandbar, visible only in low tide, which is being enlarged by fill to create a man-made island that will eventually reach the size of half of a Singapore （新加坡）. Located next to a sea trench, 30 to 60 meters in depth, Caofeidian is a natural harbor with more than twice the depth of Yangshan.
Six hundred thousand ton ships will be able to dock directly with no transfer of cargo to smaller ships needed. The facility will handle minerals, oil, coal and containers to serve as the major seaport in north China and to serve the growing steel and petrochemical complexes moving to Caofeidian. Some of the facilities are already in place and working. Huge pipes continue to spew sand from the sea to fill the land and workers are busily planting trees on land already formed.
According to official spokesperson, a total of 200 billion RMB will pour into Caofeidian by 2010. Since Caofeidian is a 25-year project, my guess is that the total investment will eventually top a trillion Yuan, or in excess of $130 billion. Not one Yuan of this investment is coming from outside of China.
Yangshan and Caofeidian are the most visible indicators of China’s confidence in its economic future and the vast internal resources at its disposal to back up that confidence. Today with Caofeidian and a newly discovered major oil field in nearby shallow waters, Tangshan is taking its place as part of the North China economic juggernaut along with Beijing and Tianjin.
Dr. Sun Yat-sen was the first to see the potential and thought Caofeidian would make an excellent depot for naval warships. Contrary to his military vision, Tangshan has become the latest example of China’s headlong plunge into economic development, an attitude not apparently understood by U.S. Department of Defense or by U.S. Congress as they continue to view China as an adversary.
In the late 19th century, Li Hongzhang （李鸿璋）, a senior official of a decaying imperial court ruling a China repeatedly pummeled by the western powers, selected Tangshan as the first site for modern industrial development. Tangshan had the advantage of proximity to coal, iron ore and seaport. Organized mining began there in 1878. First locomotive engine in China was built there, first cement made there and first standard gauge railway laid there. Government leaders, including Dr. Sun Yat-sen （孙中山） who overthrew the Manchu dynasty, regularly conducted inspection tours to Tangshan. It was the place to be seen in a way Shanghai is today.
Tangshan was the site of a 7.8 Richter scale earthquake with the epic center right beneath the heart of the city in July 1976. The city was leveled. As much as one-quarter of the population perished in the pre-dawn quake. Officials told us that Beijing’s Zhongnanhai （中南海） heard about it within minutes by radio from some hero who stood by his station to continue to broadcast the disaster despite tremors and shaking buildings. Another band of men jumped onto their truck and careened their way to Beijing to report in person.
Zhongnanhai mobilized the PLA （解放军）who descended to the devastated area and rescued 450,000 dazed survivors within first 20 hours. They went to Tangshan in such haste that first arrivals did not bring shovels and dug with their bare hands. Some with fingers so raw that they saw exposed finger bones. They eventually recovered 130,000 injured which had to be divided and flown to hospitals in other city centers, some as far as Guangzhou （广州）. We actually met one survivor, now a government official, who was treated for three months in a Xian （西安） hospital. He survived by jumping out of his 2nd floor bedroom before the building came down. There were virtually no survivors who did not lose one or more members of their immediate family. Some 4300 orphans were collected and about 700 had no related kin to take them and were adopted by others in China.
Besides the rescue effort, planes repeated swooped down and disinfected the devastated area with chemicals for the next ten days. The result was that not a fly could be found and there were no case of disease outbreak. How did the living take to the exposure? One Mr. Han, a master of local shadow puppet show, said, "Look at me, I am 76 and I do not suffer from any after effects." He actually looked real young for 76. Before the shock of the earthquake hit, he told of first hearing a rumble followed by brilliant flashes of light which he called diguang（地光).
Tangshan has been rebuilt and there is nothing remain of the old Tangshan except a museum has been built to memorialize the catastrophe and one building that toppled was preserved. The building was a library of Hebei Polytechnic University （河北理工大学） just completed and had not been occupied when the earthquake struck. The building was of special interest because three different kinds of earthquake damage can be seen from one location. One part of the building flopped side ways. The second floor of another part of the building folded right on top of the first and became the ground floor. I can't recall the third kind of failure.
As we toured this display and the museum, we were making mental contrast with the Katrina experience. The key difference was that Tangshan had no warning of the devastation about to be visited on the city while New Orleans had days to brace itself. It took China about a decade to rebuild Tangshan. The relative strength of China's economy was considerably weaker than the U.S. in 2005 when Katrina struck.
At the time of Tangshan’s 19th century industrialization, Shanghai was forcibly opened wide by the Europeans and became a cosmopolitan city associated with sin and decadence. Today, of course, Shanghai is the crown jewel symbolizing the nexus of China’s miraculous economic recovery and breathtaking growth. Shanghai’s success has been in a major part due to the development of Pudong, formerly a sleepy piece of farm land across the Huangpu River （黄浦江） many times larger than the established commercial area of Puxi （浦西）across the Huangpu.
By now, Pudong’s decade-long transformation into a commercial and industrial hub is well known to the world. The latest investment is the offshore Yangshan （杨山） deepwater port facility based on islands connected to the Pudong mainland by the 20-mile long Donghai Bridge （东海桥） over open water. Spectacular as that may be, Tangshan’s Caofeidian promises to top Pudong in years to come. Caofeidian is a sandbar, visible only in low tide, which is being enlarged by fill to create a man-made island that will eventually reach the size of half of a Singapore （新加坡）. Located next to a sea trench, 30 to 60 meters in depth, Caofeidian is a natural harbor with more than twice the depth of Yangshan.
Six hundred thousand ton ships will be able to dock directly with no transfer of cargo to smaller ships needed. The facility will handle minerals, oil, coal and containers to serve as the major seaport in north China and to serve the growing steel and petrochemical complexes moving to Caofeidian. Some of the facilities are already in place and working. Huge pipes continue to spew sand from the sea to fill the land and workers are busily planting trees on land already formed.
According to official spokesperson, a total of 200 billion RMB will pour into Caofeidian by 2010. Since Caofeidian is a 25-year project, my guess is that the total investment will eventually top a trillion Yuan, or in excess of $130 billion. Not one Yuan of this investment is coming from outside of China.
Yangshan and Caofeidian are the most visible indicators of China’s confidence in its economic future and the vast internal resources at its disposal to back up that confidence. Today with Caofeidian and a newly discovered major oil field in nearby shallow waters, Tangshan is taking its place as part of the North China economic juggernaut along with Beijing and Tianjin.
Dr. Sun Yat-sen was the first to see the potential and thought Caofeidian would make an excellent depot for naval warships. Contrary to his military vision, Tangshan has become the latest example of China’s headlong plunge into economic development, an attitude not apparently understood by U.S. Department of Defense or by U.S. Congress as they continue to view China as an adversary.
Thursday, May 17, 2007
Warning to Chinese Americans: FBI Still Obsessed With Chinese-American ‘Spies’
New America Media, Commentary, George Koo, Posted: May 17, 2007
Editor’s Note: A Chinese-American professional in Silicon Valley reviews recent federal prosecution against Chinese Americans for espionage and finds the real guilty party to be the FBI. NAM contributor Dr. George Koo has been a consultant for American companies in China for 30 years.
When a Chinese American is accused of spying for China, other Chinese Americans feel a chill, especially professionals like myself in Silicon Valley.
The May 10 conviction of Chi Mak, an electronics engineer employed by a defense contractor, is the latest case in point. Ultimately found guilty of the much lesser charge of being an unregistered foreign agent, when Mak was first arrested, he was depicted as the worst undercover agent for China the United States had ever seen.
When the defense pointed out that Mak had become a naturalized citizen who has lived quietly in his modest suburban home for 27 years, the FBI countered that this simply exposed Mak as a deep and effective mole.
Mak’s colleagues testified that the papers he copied in the CDs intended for a Chinese university were his own published work, and were already in the public domain. They posed no threat to U.S. national security.
The prosecution countered that Mak had failed to apply for an export license for the CDs, and charged him with failure to register as a foreign agent.
The prosecution also accused Mak of lying to the FBI during the initial interrogation. Somehow, the FBI failed to record this interrogation so it boiled down to a case of “we said, he said” in court.
The prosecution said Mak’s handler was a mysterious Mr. Pu in Guangzhou. Mak testified that Pu was an academic friend looking after one of his relatives. If the government knew more about Pu than Mak did, it was not disclosed in court.
The prosecution claimed a great victory in this case. According to the government, the fact that such a spectacular opening ended with a modest conviction simply demonstrates the difficulty of prosecuting Chinese spies in the United States.
Denise Woo, a former FBI agent, was assigned to conduct an undercover investigation on Jonathan Wang, another Chinese American working for a defense contractor who was suspected of spying. Woo challenged the reliability of the source who fingered Wang as a suspect.
The FBI clearly was not pleased to hear that they had been wasting taxpayer money on an investigation going nowhere. Instead of dropping the case, they charged Woo with five felony counts alleging breach of national security and abetting an enemy agent.
Woo contested the charges and was defended pro bono by Mark Holscher, the attorney who had represented Wen Ho Lee when he faced 59 counts of espionage. Woo eventually copped to a misdemeanor charge so that she could get on with her life and was fined $1,000.
Her case bears a striking similarity to Wen Ho Lee’s, whose prosecution fell apart when the FBI agent in charge admitted to lying in court.
In a move to save face, the 59 counts were reduced to one, for illegally downloading computer information, in exchange for the months of solitary confinement Lee had already served. The presiding judge apologized to Lee for unfair and inhumane treatment.
The FBI is convinced that China is a patient collector of bits and pieces of intelligence, mostly from Chinese Americans sympathetic to their homeland.
Those of us working in the technology industry find the notion ludicrous that obsolete tidbits could add up to a leading edge in military intelligence. But to the FBI, even information in the public domain points to espionage if China is involved and if the conveyor is an ethnic Chinese.
The chilling conclusion is that any Chinese American could become willing – or unsuspecting – gatherers of valuable data to Beijing.
When the FBI agent comes calling, there is only one thing to do. Get a lawyer before talking to them.
Editor’s Note: A Chinese-American professional in Silicon Valley reviews recent federal prosecution against Chinese Americans for espionage and finds the real guilty party to be the FBI. NAM contributor Dr. George Koo has been a consultant for American companies in China for 30 years.
When a Chinese American is accused of spying for China, other Chinese Americans feel a chill, especially professionals like myself in Silicon Valley.
The May 10 conviction of Chi Mak, an electronics engineer employed by a defense contractor, is the latest case in point. Ultimately found guilty of the much lesser charge of being an unregistered foreign agent, when Mak was first arrested, he was depicted as the worst undercover agent for China the United States had ever seen.
When the defense pointed out that Mak had become a naturalized citizen who has lived quietly in his modest suburban home for 27 years, the FBI countered that this simply exposed Mak as a deep and effective mole.
Mak’s colleagues testified that the papers he copied in the CDs intended for a Chinese university were his own published work, and were already in the public domain. They posed no threat to U.S. national security.
The prosecution countered that Mak had failed to apply for an export license for the CDs, and charged him with failure to register as a foreign agent.
The prosecution also accused Mak of lying to the FBI during the initial interrogation. Somehow, the FBI failed to record this interrogation so it boiled down to a case of “we said, he said” in court.
The prosecution said Mak’s handler was a mysterious Mr. Pu in Guangzhou. Mak testified that Pu was an academic friend looking after one of his relatives. If the government knew more about Pu than Mak did, it was not disclosed in court.
The prosecution claimed a great victory in this case. According to the government, the fact that such a spectacular opening ended with a modest conviction simply demonstrates the difficulty of prosecuting Chinese spies in the United States.
Denise Woo, a former FBI agent, was assigned to conduct an undercover investigation on Jonathan Wang, another Chinese American working for a defense contractor who was suspected of spying. Woo challenged the reliability of the source who fingered Wang as a suspect.
The FBI clearly was not pleased to hear that they had been wasting taxpayer money on an investigation going nowhere. Instead of dropping the case, they charged Woo with five felony counts alleging breach of national security and abetting an enemy agent.
Woo contested the charges and was defended pro bono by Mark Holscher, the attorney who had represented Wen Ho Lee when he faced 59 counts of espionage. Woo eventually copped to a misdemeanor charge so that she could get on with her life and was fined $1,000.
Her case bears a striking similarity to Wen Ho Lee’s, whose prosecution fell apart when the FBI agent in charge admitted to lying in court.
In a move to save face, the 59 counts were reduced to one, for illegally downloading computer information, in exchange for the months of solitary confinement Lee had already served. The presiding judge apologized to Lee for unfair and inhumane treatment.
The FBI is convinced that China is a patient collector of bits and pieces of intelligence, mostly from Chinese Americans sympathetic to their homeland.
Those of us working in the technology industry find the notion ludicrous that obsolete tidbits could add up to a leading edge in military intelligence. But to the FBI, even information in the public domain points to espionage if China is involved and if the conveyor is an ethnic Chinese.
The chilling conclusion is that any Chinese American could become willing – or unsuspecting – gatherers of valuable data to Beijing.
When the FBI agent comes calling, there is only one thing to do. Get a lawyer before talking to them.
Tuesday, May 15, 2007
U.S. Export Control Policy Hurts American Interests in China
American insistence on enforcing the existing export control policy can only damage the interests of the American high tech industry and not improve national security.
This is because the U.S. is no longer the sole source for much of the high technology. If other nations will not follow the U.S. on restricting exports to China, then the policy can not be effective. Unilateral control by the U.S. only shackles American high tech firms from being able to compete in China.
In 2000, China’s market for semiconductors was a mere one-fifth the size of the U.S. market. In 5 years, China has overtaken the U.S. to become the world’s largest market representing more than 21% of the market. In another five years by 2010, China will be buying $124 billion worth of integrated circuits equivalent to 40% of the world consumption.
Where is the growth coming from? The obvious answer is that China has become the preferred electronics factory of the world. Semiconductor chips are put into the laptops, camera phones, MP3 players, digital cameras, flat panel TVs, DVD players and many other consumer electronics made in China. In 2005, China exported over $137 billion worth of electronic goods, 88% of this coming from foreign invested factories.
China needs to greatly increase their semiconductor fabrication capacity in order to meet this demand, but the U.S. export control process keeps American companies from being competitive in this fastest growing market for semiconductor equipment. Everybody in China knows that they can buy equivalent equipment from European or Japanese supplier much more readily than from the American supplier.
Sam Wang, the Silicon Valley based senior executive for SMIC of Shanghai, said at a luncheon forum that for their first fab in China, they knew that if they ordered a piece of equipment from Europe, they can get it in 2 weeks; if from Japan, in two months. But if the source was from the U.S., they would not know if the order will be honored even after six months.
Washington officials have pointed out that the value of orders subject to export approval is barely 1% of the total trade deficit between China and the U.S., inferring that export control has little impact on bilateral trade. According to China’s own trade statistics, they imported $247 billion worth of high tech products in 2006. The U.S. share of China’s import was barely 8% of that total behind EU and S. Korea and well behind Japan, Taiwan and the ASEAN countries. Our success in China should not be measured by the value of orders submitted for export approval but by opportunities lost to suppliers from other countries.
Recently, the Bureau of Industry and Security of Department of Commerce has proposed to broaden control by including some 47 categories of “dual use” goods and technology. Industry responded that most of the products are available from other countries without restraint. In some cases, China has been making technologically more advanced versions than those being considered for restricted export.
The U.S. government defines dual use as any product and technology that could find military as well as civilian application. The problem with such a definition is that virtually any technology based products could conceivably have military use. A far more important but overlooked question should have been: “Is dual use relevant?” All the other countries that compete with American companies in China do not think so.
Indeed, the Government Accountability Office of Congress and experts that testified before Congress have stated on numerous occasions that dual use items do not affect China’s military prowess and are irrelevant to perceived national security of the U.S.
While the existing export control process cannot impact national security, it can hurt American firms’ ability to compete for business. The $50 billion a year semiconductor equipment industry is case in point. This is one industry created and owned by the Americans. Today, American companies’ market share in China is less than 45% and falling.
Clearly, U.S. government’s export control policy is in need of serious reform. As it currently exists, the policy and practice work against our own national interest rather than enhance national security.
___________________________________
A version of this commentary appeared in July 19, 2007 issue of Electronic Design.
This is because the U.S. is no longer the sole source for much of the high technology. If other nations will not follow the U.S. on restricting exports to China, then the policy can not be effective. Unilateral control by the U.S. only shackles American high tech firms from being able to compete in China.
In 2000, China’s market for semiconductors was a mere one-fifth the size of the U.S. market. In 5 years, China has overtaken the U.S. to become the world’s largest market representing more than 21% of the market. In another five years by 2010, China will be buying $124 billion worth of integrated circuits equivalent to 40% of the world consumption.
Where is the growth coming from? The obvious answer is that China has become the preferred electronics factory of the world. Semiconductor chips are put into the laptops, camera phones, MP3 players, digital cameras, flat panel TVs, DVD players and many other consumer electronics made in China. In 2005, China exported over $137 billion worth of electronic goods, 88% of this coming from foreign invested factories.
China needs to greatly increase their semiconductor fabrication capacity in order to meet this demand, but the U.S. export control process keeps American companies from being competitive in this fastest growing market for semiconductor equipment. Everybody in China knows that they can buy equivalent equipment from European or Japanese supplier much more readily than from the American supplier.
Sam Wang, the Silicon Valley based senior executive for SMIC of Shanghai, said at a luncheon forum that for their first fab in China, they knew that if they ordered a piece of equipment from Europe, they can get it in 2 weeks; if from Japan, in two months. But if the source was from the U.S., they would not know if the order will be honored even after six months.
Washington officials have pointed out that the value of orders subject to export approval is barely 1% of the total trade deficit between China and the U.S., inferring that export control has little impact on bilateral trade. According to China’s own trade statistics, they imported $247 billion worth of high tech products in 2006. The U.S. share of China’s import was barely 8% of that total behind EU and S. Korea and well behind Japan, Taiwan and the ASEAN countries. Our success in China should not be measured by the value of orders submitted for export approval but by opportunities lost to suppliers from other countries.
Recently, the Bureau of Industry and Security of Department of Commerce has proposed to broaden control by including some 47 categories of “dual use” goods and technology. Industry responded that most of the products are available from other countries without restraint. In some cases, China has been making technologically more advanced versions than those being considered for restricted export.
The U.S. government defines dual use as any product and technology that could find military as well as civilian application. The problem with such a definition is that virtually any technology based products could conceivably have military use. A far more important but overlooked question should have been: “Is dual use relevant?” All the other countries that compete with American companies in China do not think so.
Indeed, the Government Accountability Office of Congress and experts that testified before Congress have stated on numerous occasions that dual use items do not affect China’s military prowess and are irrelevant to perceived national security of the U.S.
While the existing export control process cannot impact national security, it can hurt American firms’ ability to compete for business. The $50 billion a year semiconductor equipment industry is case in point. This is one industry created and owned by the Americans. Today, American companies’ market share in China is less than 45% and falling.
Clearly, U.S. government’s export control policy is in need of serious reform. As it currently exists, the policy and practice work against our own national interest rather than enhance national security.
___________________________________
A version of this commentary appeared in July 19, 2007 issue of Electronic Design.
Wednesday, November 1, 2006
With the FBI, the Scales of Justice are Tilted
The U.S. District Court in Los Angeles sentenced former FBI agent Denise Woo to probation and a $1,000 fine to a misdemeanor for improperly sharing confidential information.
It could have been much worse. She was originally charged with 5 felony counts alleging serious national security breaches and faced up to a 15-year prison term.
Woo’s pro bono attorneys at O’Melveny & Myers promptly declared overwhelming victory at the end of the court hearing, but Woo did not really win. To win, she would have had to receive a medal for courage and conscience beyond the call of duty.
She was accused of having informed Jeff Wang that he was under investigation for sale of secrets to China. Wang was identified by a paid informant the FBI considered rock solid.
It turned out that the informant actually knew Wang personally and bore a grudge against him. She reported to her superiors that their target was innocent and their informant unreliable. In response, the FBI dismissed her from further involvement of the investigation.
Woo persisted and raised questions about other suspected spies for China that were fingered by the same FBI “asset.” This merely infuriated the FBI.
Ironically, the Office of Inspector General of the Department of Justice credited the same informant for calling attention to the sexual misconduct between Supervisory Special Agent J.J. Smith and another paid informant Katrina Leung.
Smith was Leung’s handler and also the one who prevailed on Woo to go undercover and spy on Wang.
As if all the misconduct and misfired investigations proved too much to bear for the FBI, they had to take it out on someone. That someone was Denise Woo.
Woo left a successful fast track career at IBM, where she made partner in the consulting practice in less than 12 years, so that she could make a difference in the public sector by combating child pornography.
Her first mistake was to join the FBI. She found a white, male dominated world with little respect for ethnic minorities and women.
She was initially assigned to the section on white collar crimes where she won several commendations for her analytical skills, hard work and persistence.
By the end of 1998, she was finally assigned to the child pornography desk where she thrived under 60-hour work weeks. It was then that she was asked to take on additional undercover work by the counter-intelligence office in Los Angeles.
She felt the ethical sting of having to spy on a close family friend. She did not realize that it was also wrong for the FBI to have placed her in a situation of potential conflict of interest.
When she reported back that Jeff Wang could not be the spy FBI was seeking, her supervisors were not pleased. They only wanted corroborating evidence.
Woo’s “crime” was in not realizing that FBI was an organization incapable of owning up to a mistake. They certainly were not going to take the findings of a young Asian woman agent seriously.
Woo only wanted to correct the way the FBI conducted counter-intelligence. Instead of seeking remedies, they set out to teach her a lesson for disrupting a macho white hierarchy.
Without the pro bono counsel of Mark Holscher and his colleagues at O’Melveny & Myers, Woo’s prospect would have been bleak. As was with Wen Ho Lee, the Los Alamos scientist also rescued by Holscher from indefinite incarceration, it was the might of the federal government against one lonely individual.
Woo can find some solace in the four former colleagues and now retired veteran FBI agents that attended her court appearance. They shook their heads and could not believe that this travesty could have gone on so long.
However, can the American taxpayers find comfort in an organization responsible for domestic counter intelligence that depends on paid professional informants? That FBI lacks the cultural sensitivity needed to work with ethnic minorities and lacks the integrity to own up to mistakes they make?
Can Americans feel protected when the very organization that is supposed to protect them is the one most likely to use their power and authority to railroad innocent victims, suppress findings and run the wheels of justice over individuals that beg to differ?
America is founded on the principle of truth and justice for all. Somebody needs to tell this to the FBI.
It could have been much worse. She was originally charged with 5 felony counts alleging serious national security breaches and faced up to a 15-year prison term.
Woo’s pro bono attorneys at O’Melveny & Myers promptly declared overwhelming victory at the end of the court hearing, but Woo did not really win. To win, she would have had to receive a medal for courage and conscience beyond the call of duty.
She was accused of having informed Jeff Wang that he was under investigation for sale of secrets to China. Wang was identified by a paid informant the FBI considered rock solid.
It turned out that the informant actually knew Wang personally and bore a grudge against him. She reported to her superiors that their target was innocent and their informant unreliable. In response, the FBI dismissed her from further involvement of the investigation.
Woo persisted and raised questions about other suspected spies for China that were fingered by the same FBI “asset.” This merely infuriated the FBI.
Ironically, the Office of Inspector General of the Department of Justice credited the same informant for calling attention to the sexual misconduct between Supervisory Special Agent J.J. Smith and another paid informant Katrina Leung.
Smith was Leung’s handler and also the one who prevailed on Woo to go undercover and spy on Wang.
As if all the misconduct and misfired investigations proved too much to bear for the FBI, they had to take it out on someone. That someone was Denise Woo.
Woo left a successful fast track career at IBM, where she made partner in the consulting practice in less than 12 years, so that she could make a difference in the public sector by combating child pornography.
Her first mistake was to join the FBI. She found a white, male dominated world with little respect for ethnic minorities and women.
She was initially assigned to the section on white collar crimes where she won several commendations for her analytical skills, hard work and persistence.
By the end of 1998, she was finally assigned to the child pornography desk where she thrived under 60-hour work weeks. It was then that she was asked to take on additional undercover work by the counter-intelligence office in Los Angeles.
She felt the ethical sting of having to spy on a close family friend. She did not realize that it was also wrong for the FBI to have placed her in a situation of potential conflict of interest.
When she reported back that Jeff Wang could not be the spy FBI was seeking, her supervisors were not pleased. They only wanted corroborating evidence.
Woo’s “crime” was in not realizing that FBI was an organization incapable of owning up to a mistake. They certainly were not going to take the findings of a young Asian woman agent seriously.
Woo only wanted to correct the way the FBI conducted counter-intelligence. Instead of seeking remedies, they set out to teach her a lesson for disrupting a macho white hierarchy.
Without the pro bono counsel of Mark Holscher and his colleagues at O’Melveny & Myers, Woo’s prospect would have been bleak. As was with Wen Ho Lee, the Los Alamos scientist also rescued by Holscher from indefinite incarceration, it was the might of the federal government against one lonely individual.
Woo can find some solace in the four former colleagues and now retired veteran FBI agents that attended her court appearance. They shook their heads and could not believe that this travesty could have gone on so long.
However, can the American taxpayers find comfort in an organization responsible for domestic counter intelligence that depends on paid professional informants? That FBI lacks the cultural sensitivity needed to work with ethnic minorities and lacks the integrity to own up to mistakes they make?
Can Americans feel protected when the very organization that is supposed to protect them is the one most likely to use their power and authority to railroad innocent victims, suppress findings and run the wheels of justice over individuals that beg to differ?
America is founded on the principle of truth and justice for all. Somebody needs to tell this to the FBI.
Sunday, October 29, 2006
Contest Serves as Memorial of World War II Atrocities in China
New America Media, News Report, George Koo, Posted: Oct 29, 2006
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Winners of the 2006 Iris Chang Memorial Essay Contest were announced in Washington DC on Sunday at the Biennial Conference of the Global Alliance for the Preserving the History of World War II in Asia.
First prize went to Hann-Shuin Yew of California for his essay, “The Rape of Nanking; A Quest for Peace.” Graeme A. Stacey of British Columbia earned second prize with Adeline Oka of Massachusetts placing third.
Honorable mentions were awarded to Heidi M. Bauer, Lani Cupchoy, Kristal Leonard, Niina Pollar, James L. Young, Natalie Beisner, Ed Dubois, Alissa Magorian, Alesia Sidliarevich, Loraine Yow, Juliane O. Bitek, Michael Dyer, Jillian McLaughlin, Jialan Wang, Andrew L. Chen, Teague B. Harvey, Matthew R. Mock, Becky Wood, Timothy Cooper, Sabrina Howell, Natasha Naik, and Lily Yan.
The organizers of the conference strive to remind the world that the atrocities in Asia must not be forgotten anymore than the Jewish Holocaust. To that end, the Alliance has, under the auspices of the Iris Chang Memorial Fund, sponsored the essay contest.
iris_changThe topic of this year’s essay contest is “How has Iris Chang’s book The Rape of Nanking: The Forgotten Holocaust of World War II affected my life and thinking?” The Fund and the contest were established in memory of Iris Chang (1968-2004 who wrote The Rape of Nanking, about the slaughter, gang rape and torture of hundreds of thousands of Chinese civilians by Japanese soldiers in the former capital of China.
Close to 300 entries from around the world responded to the essay contest. Entries came from almost every state in the union and from 11 foreign countries and represented all age groups.
Many contestants are high school students. Nearly all of them are inspired by Chang. Because of her book, they now want to major in international relations or journalism and launch a career in finding truth and seeking justice anywhere in the world.
Some of the contestants described how the book resonated with traumatic experiences of their own.
Many of the young people’s essays drew the analogy between the forgotten Holocaust and atrocities of today. They pointed out that the world has also ignored Rwanda, Darfur and Iraq. Iraq is where American soldiers have been accused of rape and slaughter of civilians. The young commentators railed at humankind’s inability to learn from the past and impotence to alter the present.
Almost all the writers voiced that they hadn’t learned about the Asian role in World War II from their school’s history curriculum. Some of the writers felt they were betrayed by the American educational system. All essays were compelling personal stories showing the influence of Iris Chang’s book on their lives.
A young mother from Uganda, now studying in Canada, couldn’t fathom why atrocities and strife in Northern Uganda that she witnessed had been ignored by the world. From the book, she learned hers was not the only one the world ignored.
A Belarus journalism student drew a parallel with Iris Chang’s heroic effort to bring truth and justice to the victims of the Nanking Massacre and the author from her homeland who called the senseless war in Afghanistan to the attention of the people of Belarus.
A young American Jewish woman who grew up with an intimate knowledge of the Jewish Holocaust was appalled that nothing was ever taught about the Nanking Massacre. As if to make a personal atonement, she is now studying Chinese and living in China. She has made it her mission to preserve the memory of the Forgotten Holocaust along with the Jewish one.
An American student who loves Japan went there as an exchange student. She contrasted the portrayal of the Japanese as victims of Hiroshima and Nagasaki with, as her home Dad demonstrated, the absolute refusal to examine their country’s role as the World War II aggressor. She was shaken by Japan’s lack of remorse and total ignorance among her fellow students about the war crimes of their grandfathers.
Reading the Rape of Nanking helped a young Hawaiian American of mixed Chinese ancestry put into context her grandparents’ stories of the Japanese slaughter of 12,000 civilians on an island in southern China a few months after the Nanking massacre of 300,000. She decided to emulate Chang and write a book, Slaughter at San Zao.
The book also reminded a young man of Filipino ancestry of the horror of Japanese brutalities that accompanied the occupation of Philippines. Tales of unspeakable atrocities were witnessed by his grandparents. “Forgetting will only conceal the truth,” he avowed.
An African-American military officer emphasized that we must not become desensitized in the face of heinous acts against humanity. Only if we were willing to take a stand and speak out against brutality, could we hope to reverse the injustices
The first prize winner will be awarded a cash of $1,000, the second prize, $500 and the third prize, $250. A cash of $50 will be awarded to each of the honorable mentions.
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Winners of the 2006 Iris Chang Memorial Essay Contest were announced in Washington DC on Sunday at the Biennial Conference of the Global Alliance for the Preserving the History of World War II in Asia.
First prize went to Hann-Shuin Yew of California for his essay, “The Rape of Nanking; A Quest for Peace.” Graeme A. Stacey of British Columbia earned second prize with Adeline Oka of Massachusetts placing third.
Honorable mentions were awarded to Heidi M. Bauer, Lani Cupchoy, Kristal Leonard, Niina Pollar, James L. Young, Natalie Beisner, Ed Dubois, Alissa Magorian, Alesia Sidliarevich, Loraine Yow, Juliane O. Bitek, Michael Dyer, Jillian McLaughlin, Jialan Wang, Andrew L. Chen, Teague B. Harvey, Matthew R. Mock, Becky Wood, Timothy Cooper, Sabrina Howell, Natasha Naik, and Lily Yan.
The organizers of the conference strive to remind the world that the atrocities in Asia must not be forgotten anymore than the Jewish Holocaust. To that end, the Alliance has, under the auspices of the Iris Chang Memorial Fund, sponsored the essay contest.
iris_changThe topic of this year’s essay contest is “How has Iris Chang’s book The Rape of Nanking: The Forgotten Holocaust of World War II affected my life and thinking?” The Fund and the contest were established in memory of Iris Chang (1968-2004 who wrote The Rape of Nanking, about the slaughter, gang rape and torture of hundreds of thousands of Chinese civilians by Japanese soldiers in the former capital of China.
Close to 300 entries from around the world responded to the essay contest. Entries came from almost every state in the union and from 11 foreign countries and represented all age groups.
Many contestants are high school students. Nearly all of them are inspired by Chang. Because of her book, they now want to major in international relations or journalism and launch a career in finding truth and seeking justice anywhere in the world.
Some of the contestants described how the book resonated with traumatic experiences of their own.
Many of the young people’s essays drew the analogy between the forgotten Holocaust and atrocities of today. They pointed out that the world has also ignored Rwanda, Darfur and Iraq. Iraq is where American soldiers have been accused of rape and slaughter of civilians. The young commentators railed at humankind’s inability to learn from the past and impotence to alter the present.
Almost all the writers voiced that they hadn’t learned about the Asian role in World War II from their school’s history curriculum. Some of the writers felt they were betrayed by the American educational system. All essays were compelling personal stories showing the influence of Iris Chang’s book on their lives.
A young mother from Uganda, now studying in Canada, couldn’t fathom why atrocities and strife in Northern Uganda that she witnessed had been ignored by the world. From the book, she learned hers was not the only one the world ignored.
A Belarus journalism student drew a parallel with Iris Chang’s heroic effort to bring truth and justice to the victims of the Nanking Massacre and the author from her homeland who called the senseless war in Afghanistan to the attention of the people of Belarus.
A young American Jewish woman who grew up with an intimate knowledge of the Jewish Holocaust was appalled that nothing was ever taught about the Nanking Massacre. As if to make a personal atonement, she is now studying Chinese and living in China. She has made it her mission to preserve the memory of the Forgotten Holocaust along with the Jewish one.
An American student who loves Japan went there as an exchange student. She contrasted the portrayal of the Japanese as victims of Hiroshima and Nagasaki with, as her home Dad demonstrated, the absolute refusal to examine their country’s role as the World War II aggressor. She was shaken by Japan’s lack of remorse and total ignorance among her fellow students about the war crimes of their grandfathers.
Reading the Rape of Nanking helped a young Hawaiian American of mixed Chinese ancestry put into context her grandparents’ stories of the Japanese slaughter of 12,000 civilians on an island in southern China a few months after the Nanking massacre of 300,000. She decided to emulate Chang and write a book, Slaughter at San Zao.
The book also reminded a young man of Filipino ancestry of the horror of Japanese brutalities that accompanied the occupation of Philippines. Tales of unspeakable atrocities were witnessed by his grandparents. “Forgetting will only conceal the truth,” he avowed.
An African-American military officer emphasized that we must not become desensitized in the face of heinous acts against humanity. Only if we were willing to take a stand and speak out against brutality, could we hope to reverse the injustices
The first prize winner will be awarded a cash of $1,000, the second prize, $500 and the third prize, $250. A cash of $50 will be awarded to each of the honorable mentions.
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