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When is a Spy not a Spy?
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As anybody who has connections to science and technology will known, America has, for quite some time, been producing far fewer science, mathematics and engineering graduates than it needs. Thus leaving employers with no other choice than to look for overseas graduates to fill vacancies.
Equally, as anybody who has connections to corporate security will know, this increased dependence on foreign employees has left America more vulnerable than ever to corporate espionage.
As such, agents from places such as Israel and the former Soviet Block no longer need to devise elaborate cover stories and false backgrounds in order to work their way into military R&D centers. Instead, they merely need to turn up on the doorstep with a college diploma and a resume written in passable English and, the next day, they can walk into a research facility in the morning, and out again in the evening, carrying with them such delights as the plans to America's missile defense system.
At least, that's what some people would have you believe.
In reality, things are often a lot more complicated than that. One such "more complicated" case is that of Mak Chi; A Chinese engineer whose date with a US judge, on charges of espionage, is looming.
Chinese Espionage
Mak, a senior engineer with US Navy contractor "Power Paragon", was detained on 28 October 2005. He was officially charged with "acting as agents of a foreign government", under 18 U.S.C. 951, on 15 November that year.
"I believe the targets are foreign intelligence operatives"
James Gaylord, Counter Intelligence Officer, FBI
Mak's detention came after two to his relatives; husband and wife Mak Taiwing and Li Fukheung, were intercepted at Los Angeles airport, and were found to be carrying what has been described as a "munitions list", containing information on advanced propulsion system - known as a Quiet Electronic Drive (QED) - designed to allow US submarines to travel undetected which make is accused of supplying them with through his work at Power Paragon.
"[He] transferred information concerning QED and other projects belonging to the government from his workplace to his home. Once there, [he] copied such information onto CDs and delivered them to his brother"
Affidavit.
According to official sources, they were attempting to board a flight to Hong Kong, with the intent of crossing the border to the Mainland with the documents.
In addition to charges that he was attempting to provide Beijing with the material found at the airport, Mak is also accused of being in possession of a "shopping list" of US technology that authorities believe he had been asked to acquire data on.
Included on the list were instructions to find information on the electronics systems used on board US aircraft carriers, and information on America's early warning systems. A well as on various "exotic" electromagnetic defensive/offensive systems.
Hatchet Job?
Although the case appears to be a straightforward case of industrial espionage, with Mak procuring secret documents from his place of work, and his family transporting them to China, China watchers have noted that proceedings are as open and shut as they might first appears.
Far from being a state secret, the documents that Mak stands accused of procuring, were all in the public domain (were accessible to member of the public), having already been provided freely to attendees of an earlier seminar.
"every document in this case was distributed at a public conference"
Ronald Kaye, Lawyer to Mak
Due to this, Mak has not been charged with attempting to reveal state secrets, but has instead been charged under legal clauses pertaining to the export of technology to an unfriendly power, with officials in Washington holding that, while the documents were not secret "in the conventional sense" and can be exported from the US to much of the world, they were secret "as far as China is concerned" due to the ongoing Sino-US arms embargo. Thus, they required an export permit. Which Mak did not possess.
However, this too has its own complications. Namely, that the documents Mak was accused of procuring were not declared to be on the restricted exports list until after authorities discovered them in his relative's luggage. Further more, a selection of documents had previously been declared as safe for export on the grounds that they were vague, and contained insufficient information to pose a threat to US interests.
In most circumstances, US law forbids retrospective rulings. Instead, mandating that an action must be illegal at the time that it is committed in order for the perpetrator to be the subject of state action.
Distractions?
While the Mak case is a serious issue in itself, it has raised a number of larger questions in Washington. Including, why was a man with strong connections to China allowed direct access to US military contracts, and whether Mak would have been placed under closer scrutiny if he came from a “bogeyman country/ethnicity”?
According to some officials within Washington, the Mak case is a clear indication that the US has taken its eye off the ball in regards to China, and has allowed such issues as the prosecution of the so-called War on Terror and the occupation of Iraq, to draw official attention away from combating the “The China Threat”.
"Iraq has got the headlines today, but you mark this down: Five years from now, we're not going to be talking about Iraq, we're going to be talking about China,"
James R Forbes, Congressman, Virginia (Republican)
At present, any contentions that the Mak case would never have been allowed to happen were he an ethnic Arab, or a practicing Muslim, remain pure speculation. As do any contentions that, in Mak's absence, Beijing would simply have used money, or some other form of leverage, to recruit a white American informer in his place.
Mak Chi?
Mak was born in Guangzhou, China in 1940. He became a US citizen in 1985, and is a resident of Downey, California. He and obtained "Secret" level clearance in 1996, and, at the time of his alleged espionage, worked as a Principal Support Engineer for Power Paragon.
He is believed to have been involved in over 200 military contracts and official sources contend that he and his family may have been working for the Chinese government since 1990.
The Case?
The case against Mak will be heard in Santa Ana, California, and be presided over by Judge Cormac Carney.
Several members of Mak's family, those detained at the airport and his wife, have also been held on similar charges. Their trials will be held separately. If convicted, they could receive a sentence of up to 10 Years each.
So what documents were involved? If they are public domain it should be
disclosed by now.
I think that it was mostly specing details on the QED system plus
photographs of it, too.
My gut feeling when I first read of this case was that Mak is not a spy. If
he were, the standard procedure would be to leave him in place in order to
determine his contacts and methods and to, possibly, feed him falsified
information to pass on to his handlers. This puts the counterintelligence
people in control of the situation and allows them to run their own
operation. Counterintelligence types have gone to great lengths to
"protect" enemy spies for these reasons.
Of course, there are three small problems here