March 29, 2024

China Seen in Push to Gain Technology Insights

But not all the cutting edge developments may be the result of indigenous innovation, according to American prosecutors, who last month charged three Chinese scientists at the New York University School of Medicine with taking bribes to share research findings with their real employers: the Shenzhen institute and a separate Shanghai medical technology company.

Though considerable attention has been focused on Chinese cyberespionage efforts, the institute is at the vanguard of a related push to bolster China’s competitiveness by acquiring overseas technology directly from Chinese scientists working in the United States and other developed countries, say American officials and analysts. Those scientists are heavily recruited to return to China or, in some instances, to share their knowledge while remaining overseas, according to the federal court case and a book released last month by three experts who do China research for the United States government.

In advance of a summit meeting in California later this week between President Obama and President Xi Jinping of China, the two countries agreed to hold regular meetings on the issues of cybersecurity and commercial espionage. But there is no sign yet of what those discussions might accomplish.

The authors of the new book, “Chinese Industrial Espionage,” say that technology transfer is an official policy at all levels of the Communist Party and the state. It often takes place in a legal gray area, since laws governing technology transfer can be vague or nonexistent. The authors warn that the United States and other nations need to acknowledge the extent of the Chinese campaign, which they say far exceeds those of other countries and threatens American competitiveness.

They contend that the scale of China’s efforts to gather overseas technology is so immense that the National Counterintelligence Executive, a federal agency, has considered issuing separate annual reports each year: one for China and one for the rest of the world.

“China is in a different league altogether, exceeding the international norm not just in scale, the number and variety of transfer venues, the moral agnosticism of its practitioners, and the degree of government support,” the authors, William C. Hannas, James Mulvenon and Anna B. Puglisi, said in written answers to questions. “It’s an entire mind-set.”

China’s strategies range from setting up science parks for Chinese returnees to persuading foreign companies to open research centers in China, they said.

A private intelligence company in the Washington area, Defense Group Inc., which employs Mr. Mulvenon, says the government-financed center that the N.Y.U. scientists are accused of being part of, the Shenzhen Institutes of Advanced Technology, recruits overseas Chinese with technical knowledge and “has sought to develop collaborative relationships with foreign companies and research organizations which display high potential for technology transfer.”

A spokeswoman for the Shenzhen center said it was investigating the accusations in the N.Y.U. case. A lawyer for Yudong Zhu, an associate professor in the N.Y.U. radiology department and the lead scientist charged, said the government “has drawn some erroneous conclusions from some of the evidence they have observed” and that Mr. Zhu did not work for the Shanghai company.

The Commission on the Theft of American Intellectual Property concluded in May that technology theft amounted to a loss of more than $300 billion a year, the equivalent of total annual United States exports to Asia. “Virtually every sector and technology is attacked,” the commission said.

“National industrial policy goals in China encourage IP theft, and an extraordinary number of Chinese in business and government entities are engaged in this practice,” said the report by the commission, which was led by Dennis C. Blair, a former director of national intelligence, and Jon M. Huntsman Jr., a former ambassador to China.

The Chinese Foreign Ministry and the State Council, China’s cabinet, declined to comment for this article. In early May, the Commerce Ministry denied accusations by the United States Trade Representative that China was weak on enforcing intellectual property rights. “The Chinese government attaches great importance to intellectual property protection and has made great progress in areas like intellectual property legislation and enforcement,” it said.

Cases like the one at N.Y.U. of overseas Chinese scientists and scholars accused of secretly transferring technical information are considered rare, especially given that the number of Chinese students going abroad reached 400,000 last year. But the growing emphasis in the United States on technology theft by China has made some Chinese-Americans and overseas Chinese fearful of undue persecution. They point to the fiasco of the Wen Ho Lee case, in which a Chinese-American scientist was wrongly accused by federal officials of stealing classified nuclear-related documents.

Edward Wong reported from Shenzhen and Beijing, and Didi Kirsten Tatlow reported from Beijing. Patrick Zuo contributed research from Beijing.

Article source: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/06/world/asia/wide-china-push-is-seen-to-obtain-industry-secrets.html?partner=rss&emc=rss