An Open Letter Issued by the Chinese Scientists
February 10, 1998
More than one month ago, we learned from foreign media that Dr. Peter H. Lee, a Taiwan-born Chinese American who worked first at Los Alamos National Laboratory in the State of New Mexico and then at TRW in the State of California, has been accused of a crime by FBI and arrested by the US Justice Department. The accusation against him was allegedly that during his visit to China in 1985, he provided this country with "some detailed data to related to use of lasers to simulate nuclear detonations", and then in 1997 he gave the Chinese scientists "a lecture related to his research work at TRW". So far Dr. Lee has been forced to confess his so-called being guilty and could face a maximum federal sentence of 15 years and a $250,000 fine if he is sentenced on Feb. 23, 1998.
We, Chinese physicists, as signed below (among us, some invited and hosted Dr. Lee for the academic exchange schedules and conferences, some knew him as an eminent scientist and attended his lectures, and some are academic leaders and research experts), are greatly shocked, for we are clear that in 1985 and 1997, Dr. Lee successively delivered lectures relating purely to basic research and never dealt with so-called "data that might function as important military applications to China".
In January 1985, Dr. Lee gave lectures on laser fusion which, indeed, did not go beyond the contents that had been published in the academic journals, such as "Laser Focus" etc., by American scientists around 1981, which was far from interpretable as relevant to any secrecy "to simulate nuclear detonations". On the other hand, as a matter of fact as early as in 1964, an idea on laser fusion had been proposed by scientists in China. Since then, the laser fusion research has been conducted in China accordingly and international exchanges took place as well, through this means we were acquaint with Dr. Lee.
In May 1997, in his lectures, Dr. Lee talked about the microwave backscattering from sea surface. He offered his papers, which had already been published in the journals such as IEE Proc.-Radar, Sonar Navif. And Applied Optics. Nothing in the lectures during his visit went beyond the findings in these academic papers.
Thus, we could not help asking why such ordinary academic exchanges have been imaginarily charged with providing so-called "detailed data to China relating to use of lasers to simulate nuclear detonations"?
As we all know, Sino-US relationship has gained a better impetus, due to President Jiang Zemin's successful visit to the United States last year and President Clinton's forthcoming visit to China. At this moment, we do not like to see some people still trying to jeopardize the friendly relationship between our two nations in the academic circles.
We are deeply concerned about the occurrence of this event. For this sake, we sincerely appeal to the American people, particularly American scientists, to free Dr. Lee from the innocent persecution. Certainly, this would benefit the healthy development of the Sino-US relationship.
The Academicians of Chinese Academy of Sciences:
Gan-chang Wang Da-heng Wang Xi-de Xie Jia-er Chen Nai-yan Wang Zhi-zhan Xu Xian-tu He
February 10, 1998
|
NEWSLETTER
|
| Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list |
|
|
|
