Arrest part of ramped-up effort to curb arms sales

NORFOLK

The recent arrest of a Newport News scientist on charges of selling space technology to China is part of an ongoing U.S. crackdown on illegal arms sales to the communist nation.

Days after China launched three astronauts into space, Quan-Sheng Shu is expected to ask a federal judge Monday to go free on bond. Shu has been in jail since Wednesday facing charges that he sold China technical details on how to build a sophisticated rocket that the U.S. government says China plans to use in future space missions.

Federal prosecutors will ask the judge to keep Shu in jail without bond pending grand jury action.

The U.S. Justice Department announced last fall a "national counter-proliferation initiative" aimed at stopping the exporting of restricted military and dual-use technology to nations prohibited from receiving such items, particularly, though, China and Iran. Dual-use technology could mean a rocket designed for a space launch being used to fire a military missile.

"The threat posed by illegal foreign acquisition of restricted U.S. technology is substantial and growing," the department said in a news release. "China and Iran pose particular U.S. export control concerns."

The crackdown actually had been under way well before the initiative was announced, according to department spokesman Dean Boyd.

"We've been prosecuting these cases for many years, but we feel like we need to step up our efforts," Boyd said Thursday.

In 2005, the FBI's chief counterintelligence official called China the biggest espionage threat. The government has prosecuted at least 20 cases involving illegal sales of such technology to China since 2006, second only to Iran, Justice Department data shows.

Just this month, a University of Tennessee professor was convicted of federal charges of exporting to China technical data on the U.S. development of unmanned aerial vehicles, or drones.

Other convictions over the past two years include the illegal sales to China of military aircraft parts, thermal imaging cameras, Navy warship data and space shuttle secrets, the department said.

Security experts said the crackdown has grown side-by- side with China's explosive military and space program buildup in recent decades and coincides with the demise of the Cold War.

"They're the enemy," said John Pike, director and founder of GlobalSecurity.org, a Washington think tank devoted to defense, intelligence and space issues.

However, there have been inconsistencies, he said.

"If you look at the civil aviation sector, we're open for business," Pike said. "We've taught them how to build airplanes." He noted that the United States also has sold China military helicopters.

The crackdown could be harming the sharing of legitimate academic research between nations, even those unfriendly to the United States, noted Gerald L. Epstein, a senior fellow in homeland security at the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies.

The United States, he said, has always maintained a liberal policy on the sharing of research among academics.

"It's been an issue for decades on how we can both excel at the art of developing space technology and making sure we're not releasing technology that could be dangerous," he said.

The Justice Department said Shu wasn't sharing academic research with China, but selling rocket technology.

Shu received a federal research grant to develop part of that technology for NASA's Kennedy Space Center, according to court records.

Since 2000, the federal government has provided more than $2.7 million to Shu's company, Amac International, in research grants and contracts, largely from NASA and the Department of Energy, according to federal records compiled by the government watchdog group OMB Watch.

Federal prosecutors allege that Shu blatantly violated federal arms control laws by selling China space rocket technology and even bribing Chinese officials to get the contract.

Shu is accused of taking $250,000 from an unidentified French company that served as an intermediary in the sale of the rocket design plans.

Shu had not obtained an attorney as of Friday afternoon, according to his court file.

His wife, who answered the phone at the couple's home, said she knew nothing about the allegations before hanging up abruptly.

Amac's longtime registered agent, Newport News attorney Richard Gordon, said he could not comment.

For prosecutor Alan M. Salsbury, an assistant U.S. attorney in the Norfolk office, this will be his second case in 10 years involving illegal exports to China.

Eight years ago he obtained convictions against a couple for selling spare military parts to China from their warehouse near Old Dominion University.

Salsbury has declined to comment on the Shu case.

The United States has maintained an arms embargo against China since the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre.

Tim McGlone, (757) 446-2343, tim.mcglone@pilotonline.com