Panel Says Chinese Spying Is Tech Threat
WASHINGTON- Chinese spying in America represents the greatest threat to U.S. technology, according to a congressional advisory panel report Thursday that recommended lawmakers consider financing counterintelligence efforts meant to stop China from stealing U.S. manufacturing expertise.
The U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission also said in its annual report to Congress that small- and medium-sized U.S. manufacturers, which represent more than half the manufacturing jobs in America, “face the full brunt of China’s unfair trade practices, including currency manipulation and illegal subsidies for Chinese exports.”
China’s economic policies create a trade relationship that is “severely out of balance” in China’s favor, said the commission, which Congress set up in 2000 to investigate and report on U.S.-China issues.
Carolyn Bartholomew, the commission’s chairwoman, told reporters that “China’s interest in moving toward a free market economy is not just stalling but is actually now reversing course.”
China denied any spying activities, stressing the importance of healthy economic ties with the U.S. “China never does anything undermining the interests of other countries,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao said at a regular briefing Thursday in Beijing. “China and the U.S. have a fundamental common interest in promoting sound and rapid development.”
The report comes about a year before U.S. presidential and congressional elections, and candidates have been critical of what they see as China’s failure to live up to its responsibilities as an emerging superpower. China often is singled out for its flood of goods into the United States; for building a massive, secretive military; for abusing its citizens’ rights, and for befriending rogue nations to secure sources of energy.
U.S. officials also recognize that the United States needs China, a veto-holding member of the U.N. Security Council, to secure punishment for Iran’s nuclear program and to persuade North Korea to give up its nuclear weapons.
The commission’s Democratic and Republican appointees have begun meeting with congressional staff and lawmakers to discuss the report’s 42 recommendations.
In the report, the commission said China’s spies allow Chinese companies to get new technology “without the necessity of investing time or money to perform research.” Chinese espionage was said to be straining U.S. counterintelligence agencies and helping China’s military modernization.
While the report praised China for some economic progress this year, improvements were undertaken “with great hesitancy and, even then, only with the prodding of other nations and the World Trade Organization.”
China, it said, “maintains a preference for authoritarian controls over its economy” and has done too little to police widespread copyright piracy of foreign goods sold in China.
The commission also faulted China for keeping the value of its currency artificially low against the dollar. American manufacturers long have complained that Beijing’s low currency makes Chinese goods cheaper in the United States and American products more expensive in China.
China’s dependence on coal, lack of energy efficiency and poor enforcement of environmental regulations, the report said, “are creating devastating environmental effects that extend throughout the region and beyond to the United States.”
The commission said tensions between Taiwan and China have created an “emotionally charged standoff that risks armed conflict if not carefully managed by both sides. Such a conflict could involve the United States.”
The United States has hinted it would go to war to protect Taiwan if nuclear-armed China were to attack. China claims Taiwan as its own and vows to attack any declaration of independence by the island’s leaders.
The report also described what it said was China’s tight control over information distribution, which allows Beijing “to manage and manipulate the perceptions of the Chinese people, often promoting nationalism and xenophobia.”
Beijing, the report said, uses its control of the media to influence its perception in the United States; that could endanger U.S. citizens if reports on food and product safety and disease outbreaks are manipulated.
AP article by Foster Klug here.
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China has been doing this for years now. I swear i think China is the biggest threat to our country, outsourcing of all of our companies to there, 1 billion potential workers and no respect for patents or trademarks will allow that country to bring us down without even firing a shot.
November 15th, 2007 at 8:44 amShit no Sherlock! or is it No shit Sherlock?
so we let china into the world market and have provided them with wealth, it is time to even the playing field.
They have a good taste of a better life through capitalism and the population will not accept turning back now
play by the rules or go away
I say we develop the African continent market, they need it
November 15th, 2007 at 8:49 amtime to rise some customs rules,
why not taxing their products on the pollution argument, that was a Sarko proposition, cause, difficult to go against the mondial markets rules
November 15th, 2007 at 9:16 amThe Failure of Counterintelligence
As my colleagues have noted, the case of Nadia Nadim Prouty and her ability to illegally acquire citizenship, security clearances and sensitive employment in the FBI and CIA, raises many disturbing issues.
But underlying this failure and numerous other penetration efforts by Islamist groups is the large-scale failure of U.S. counterintelligence efforts for many years. There are numerous cases of Chinese infiltration agents, Islamist penetration and Russian penetrations that underscore the shrinking ability to monitor or detect the spies working in this country.
http://www.douglasfarah.com/article/274/the-failure-of-counter-intelligence.com
November 15th, 2007 at 5:05 pmJim
a japanese proverb :
“if we are copied, that means we are good”
so let them copy, but we/you got to be always one lengh in advance in “researches” (and discoveries)
a famous De Gaulle’s sentence :
“so, there, are the researchers, but where are the discoverers”
November 16th, 2007 at 1:58 am