The Sydney Morning Herald
Four people were arrested in the United States on Monday on charges of spying for China in two separate cases, including one involving the US space shuttle, the Justice Department said.
New Orleans residents Tai Shen Kuo and Yu Xin Kang, and Gregg William Bergersen of Alexandria, Virginia, were arrested for passing US defence secrets to China in one case, according to a Justice Department statement.
In a second case, former Boeing engineer Dongfan "Greg" Chung was arrested on charges involving stealing and turning over to China Boeing trade secrets, including information involving the space shuttle, the department said in a separate statement.
Kuo, 58, is accused of having worked under the direction of an unnamed Chinese official to obtain classified US defence information from Bergersen, 51, a Department of Defence employee, the Justice Department said.
"Much of the information pertained to US military sales to Taiwan," it said.
Kang, 33, a Chinese citizen resident in the United States, meanwhile was named as a "conduit of information" between Kuo and the Chinese official.
Kuo and Kang both face up to life in prison if convicted for the charge of criminal conspiracy to disclose national defence information to a foreign government.
Bergersen, a weapons systems policy analyst in the US Defence Security Cooperation Agency in Arlington, Virigina, is charged with disclosing national defence information to unauthorised persons, which could bring up to 10 years in prison.
Chung, 72, a China native and naturalised US citizen living in Orange, California, was charged with economic espionage for taking secrets involving the shuttle, the C-17 military transport and the Delta IV rocket while he worked at Boeing and, before that, at US defence contractor Rockwell.
The US alleges he had received directives since as early as 1979 from individuals in China's aviation industry telling him to collect specific information.
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