The Orange County Register February 20, 2008
China spy case seen as warning
Charges against ex-Boeing engineer are intended to send a signal to China, experts say. Orange resident pleads not guilty.
By Andrew Galvin
Accusations of economic espionage against Dongfan "Greg" Chung, an Orange resident and former Boeing Co.engineer, suggest he may have been only a minor player in Chinese efforts to obtain foreign space and military technology, experts said.
The federal charges against Chung include stealing trade secrets about the space shuttle, the Delta IV rocket and the C-17 military cargo jet for the benefit of the Chinese government and aerospace industry.
Chung, 72, appeared briefly Tuesday before U.S. Magistrate Judge Marc L. Goldman, who entered a not guilty plea on Chung's behalf. Chung and his attorney, Ken Miller, declined to comment after the hearing.
"This is not a big-deal case in my opinion," said Joan Johnson-Freese, an expert on China's space development and chairwoman of the National Security Studies department at the U.S. Naval War College in Newport, R.I. "This is all commercial technology, and the U.S. is not the only one who has these kinds of technologies."
In calling a Washington, D.C., news conference last week to announce the arrest of Chung and three others accused in an unrelated case, the government probably wanted to send a message about economic espionage both to China and the American public, said John Pike, a space expert and director of GlobalSecurity.org.
"One, to the Chinese, that we don't like it, and No. 2, to the American people, that you need to be on the lookout for it and it is illegal and if you do it, we will try to catch you," Pike said.
At last week's news conference, Ken Wainstein, the assistant attorney general for national security, said the two cases represent "a threat to our national security and to our economic position in the world – the threat that is posed by the relentless efforts of foreign intelligence services to penetrate our security systems and steal our most sensitive military technology and information."
According to an indictment unsealed last week, Chung corresponded with Chinese officials in government, academia and industry about the types of technical information he could supply. Most of the letters cited in the indictment are from the mid-1980s, although Chung is accused of being in possession of proprietary Boeing documents as late as 2006.
If Chung committed the crimes, they likely did not seriously damage U.S. security interests, but they are "yet another example of a continuing pattern of activity on the part of the Chinese," Pike said.
"It's a typical case for the Chinese. They do not hit home runs. It's a lot of low-grade stuff where they're just scooping up whatever they can get their hands on. Their theory is that if you do enough of it, eventually it will amount to something."
Chung is accused of supplying China with information such as details of an antenna system for the space shuttle. China would be interested in that data to analyze the types of defenses that might be available to Taiwan, a U.S. ally, rather than to developing systems, Johnson-Freese said.
Prosecutors learned of Chung through the case of Chi Mak, another Chinese American engineer. Mak, who worked for Power Paragon Inc.of Anaheim, was found guilty last year of exporting sensitive defense technology to China. Mak faces up to 45 years in prison when he is sentenced March 24.
According to Chung's indictment, a Chinese government official wrote to Chung in 1987 suggesting that passing information though Mak was "faster and safer." In 1988, the same official wrote to Chung that Mak's wife was in China and had reported that the Maks and Chungs had a good relationship, the indictment said.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Greg Staples declined to comment Tuesday about whether the damage allegedly done by Chung to U.S. security equaled that done by Mak.
Espionage plays only a small role in China's efforts to develop its space program, which is about 50 years behind the U.S. program, Johnson-Freese said.
"Most of their information comes from open source and very legal technology transfer arrangements," she said. "Do they kind of shortcut it and supplement it through espionage? Yes."
Still, some U.S. observers see China's efforts to obtain space technology as a cause for grave concern.
"Space for the Chinese is a way of gaining superiority over the Americans should the U.S. and China have a confrontation over Taiwan or oil in the Strait of Hormuz," said Peter Navarro, a professor at UC Irvine's Paul Merage School of Business and author of "The Coming China Wars."
Chung is "this nameless, faceless guy who floated through Boeing, but he did a lot of damage," Navarro said.
Johnson-Freese downplayed the threat. "Is this going to be the kind of technology that makes them a near-peer competitor to the U.S.? No."
Chung posted a $250,000 bond last week and was put under house arrest and electronic monitoring. His trial is tentatively scheduled for April 8.
Chung worked for Rockwell International in Downey from 1973 through 1996, when Boeing bought Rockwell's defense and space business. He worked at Boeing's Huntington Beach offices until 2002. He returned to Boeing as a contractor from 2003 through 2006.
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