Activist admits to selling high-tech items to China

Houston Chronicle ^ | November 27, 2003 | AP

[Cincinatus' Wife]

WASHINGTON -- A human rights activist freed from a Chinese prison after the U.S. government interceded on her behalf pleaded guilty Wednesday to illegally selling American high-tech items with potential military uses to China.

Gao Zhan, who was born in China and is a U.S. resident living in McLean, Va., pleaded guilty to one count of unlawful export for selling 80 microprocessors. She also pleaded guilty to tax evasion, as did her husband, Xue Donghua.

"The technology exported in this case is tightly controlled for good reason: It can be used in sensitive military systems," said Kevin Delli-Colli, a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent. The Defense Criminal Investigative Service also is involved in the case.

Gao could face up to 10 years in prison, with sentencing set for March 5. But prosecutors say she could get a more lenient sentence if she continues to cooperate with investigators trying to identify others involved in exports of sensitive goods to China.

Xue, who could face up to a year in prison, also agreed to cooperate.

A spokesman for the Chinese Embassy in Washington declined to comment.

Gao gained international attention when she was arrested in China on Feb. 11, 2001, on charges of spying for Taiwan. She and her husband and their 5-year-old son were about to return to the United States following a visit when they were seized by government agents.

Gao was jailed. Her husband, who is an American citizen, and son were detained and separated from each other for 26 days before being allowed to return to the United States without her.

Her release was secured in part by President Bush's phone call to Chinese President Jiang Zemin, which came during a time of tense U.S.-China relations following an mid-air collision between a U.S. spy plane and a Chinese fighter jet.

The spy plane made an emergency landing and no one aboard was hurt. The Chinese plane crashed and the pilot died.

While court documents lay out the crimes Gao admitted committing, U.S. officials were unable to explain why China suspected her of spying against it if she had been helping the Chinese government for years.

According to prosecutors, from 1998 to 2001 Gao helped the Chinese government obtain more than $1.5 million in sensitive items using a false name and a front company.

Court documents say Gao admitted to using the name "Gail Heights" to order high-tech items to be illegally shipped to China through a front company called "Technology Business Services" or "University Services" that she falsely claimed was connected to George Mason University in Fairfax, Va.

U.S. Customs officials were tipped to the scheme in fall 2000 by a company that had found no connection between the university and the "Gail Heights" that had placed an order for electronic parts that fall under U.S. government export controls.

A search of Gao's home revealed contracts for similar parts with a variety of Chinese entities with ties to China's military, including China National, Incom Import & Export Co. and Nanjing Institute of Radio Technology, documents showed.

The plea agreement involves only one of those sales, a contract with Incom for the microprocessors. The components operate at low temperatures, making them ideal for aircraft navigation, weapons fire control systems, radar and airborne battle management systems.

Gao was paid almost $540,000 for the microprocessor deal. She agreed as part of the guilty plea to forfeit to the government $505,000 traced from that transaction and pay $89,000 in additional taxes and penalties.

[Cincinatus' Wife]

Chinese scholar pleads guilty to illegally exporting technology to China***Under the plea bargain, Gao is required to cooperate with US authorities investigating the export of illegal items to China. Gao's court appearance on Wednesday completed a spectacular fall from grace after she emerged as a human rights icon when she was arrested and charged by China with spying for Taiwan in February 2001. Her fate, and that of her husband Xue, and then five-year-old son captured the hearts of human rights campaigners here, who mounted a campaign for her freedom.

Her release followed fierce diplomatic pressure from Washington, and was seen at the time as an olive branch to Powell before he arrived in Beijing at a time of high Sino-US tensions. Gao spent five and a half months in Chinese jails. At the time of her arrest, Xue and the couple's then five-year-old son, Andrew, a US citizen, were held separately for 26 days before being released, but Gao herself was charged with spying for Taiwan. She was sentenced to 10 years in prison before being released on medical grounds.***

American University sociology professor Gao Zhan gestures during an interview in her McLean, Va. home in this July 27, 2001 file photo. Gao, a human rights activist whom the U.S. government helped free from a Chinese prison in 2001 pleaded guilty Wednesday, Nov. 26, 2003 to illegally sending $1.5 million worth of high-tech items to China. She entered the plea in federal court in Alexandria, Va., to one count of unlawful export and another count of tax evasion. (AP Photo/Joe Marquette, Files)

[kitkat]

BUMP

[ridesthemiles]

Anyone taking any bets that she will be around when March 5 comes for her sentencing? My guess is that she becomes a bolter.

[Samwise]

Gee, you think someone who would betray both of her countries would lack the integrity to show up for court?

[patj]

OK then, who gave her the title of "activist"? Who started the pity party?

[Brian Allen]

A Lee Wen Ho-like example of why all foreign-born ethnic-Chinese will face incarceration during the coming war with the Peking psychopaths' "PLA."

[Cincinatus' Wife]

I don't know. I do recall pictures her husband and child and reports on her "plight" being publicized. As Paul Harvey would say, "Now for the rest of the story."

[clee1]

Give her a fair trial, then hang her.

[Smokin' Joe]

Let's see--the whole story, cover names, photos, etc. Useless as a double agent.. Hero of Peking... Should be fed to dogs chained to her ancestors graves to defecate her there.

[dennisw]

Sorry, but many immigrants stab America in the back. This is how we are repaid for our generosity. We are seen as a soft nation to be scammed, even by the legal immigrants. Most common way is to bring in more of your fellow countrymen ILLEGALLY and to employ them at illegally low expolitative wages.

[dennisw]

If she runs and doesn't end up in prison for years, I will be po'ed.

[dennisw]

http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=12882

Human right activist sold US chips to China

But she'd been convicted by China of spying for Taiwan

By INQUIRER staff: Thursday 27 November 2003, 08:15

 A WOMAN better known for her advocacy of human rights in communist China was convicted yesterday of selling top US chip technology to the country.

CNN reports that Gao Zhan collected over $500,000 from China for passing US military microprocessors to the communists.

The woman has a previous conviction for spying – communist China convicted her in 2001 for spying for Taiwan.

Just after she was convicted, she was admitted to the US and spent time pursuing the case of persecuted people in China.

The period she spied for Taiwan against China, she was also apparently spying for China against the US, something of a first.

Gao, who pleaded guilty in the US, could spend 10 years in a federal clink. She won’t be deported to China. Or Taiwan.

 

[dennisw]

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/11/26/national/main585780.shtml

According to federal prosecutors, from August 1998 through 2001 Gao ran Technology Business Services, a business specializing in exports of technology to China. The exports were made to Chinese companies tied to "institutes" which perform research and development for the Chinese government, including the Chinese military.

Among the items sent to China were microprocessors that can be used in digital flight control and weapons systems, including identification of targets. Although these microprocessors also have commercial uses, they cannot be exported without permission of the U.S. government.

--->>>>>Gao was paid $1.5 million by China for the microprocessors and other items, but prosecutors say she and her husband did not report most of the income on their tax returns.

Gao faces a maximum of 37 months in prison, with her husband facing up to a year in prison and a fine of up to $100,000.

Prosecutors say they will ask for a reduced sentence because Gao has been working with the U.S. government to identify people in the Chinese government who are seeking to import sensitive American goods.

U.S. officials say they are not sure if Gao's arrest in China — where she was sentenced to ten years in prison for selling secrets to Taiwan, then given medical parole — was a ruse.

One of several academics jailed in China in recent years, Gao's detention became a cause célèbre for politicians and human rights activists.

In June 2001 the House of Representatives passed a resolution condemning China for depriving Gao of her "basic human rights" and barring her from seeing her husband, child or lawyer.

[Cincinatus' Wife]

Scholar Once Held By China Is Guilty***Another law enforcement official said the equipment, which could be used in everything from navigating military aircraft to identifying targets, "gives us our edge, and we have to ensure that our forces are protected." But officials could not say how national security was harmed because they don't know where the equipment wound up. "The Chinese don't exactly tell us that," the official said.

That was only one of many mysteries still surrounding Gao, who was imprisoned for five months by the Chinese, sentenced to a further 10 years as a spy for Taiwan and, one day later, sent home. Even as President Bush was calling for her release, court papers revealed yesterday, U.S. government agents were almost a year into investigating the equipment sales.

Some people familiar with the case raised the possibility that Gao's imprisonment was part of an elaborate cover story in which the Chinese were complicit. "It's curious, isn't it?" one government official said.

Another official said that the shipments arranged by Gao continued while she was in prison in Beijing and that Gao had been shipping banned high-tech items to China for four years before she was caught. The investigation began when a U.S. manufacturer alerted the government to her purchases.

But human rights advocates and academics who had rallied to Gao's cause, while expressing shock and a sense of betrayal at the turn of events, said they had no reason to doubt Gao's account of her 166 days in a Chinese jail.

The circumstances surrounding the imprisonment of Gao, a native of China, and her then-6-year-old son, said Saman Zia Zarifi, the director of Human Rights Watch's Asia division, made him doubt "that the whole thing was a setup."

Gao's attorney, Mark Hulkower, said she "never intended to harm the United States" and called her detention "the incarceration of a political dissident."

But Hulkower would not say why Gao sold the equipment. A Justice Department official cited "a strong money motive" but said that wasn't completely satisfying because agents had seized a bank account with $540,000 still in it.

"The money wasn't going anywhere," the official said. "It's not like they were getting the money and it was going to pay off some debt."

Gao, who is scheduled to be sentenced March 5, faces up to 13 years in prison for illegally exporting a controlled item and tax fraud. She was released on a $50,000 personal recognizance bond.

In a soft, halting voice, Gao said she did not seek the U.S. license she knew was required to export the sophisticated equipment because she thought it would be denied. ***

[Cincinatus' Wife]

Letter To President George W. Bush and Secretary of State Colin Powell Regarding American University Fellow Dr. Zhan Gao

March 26, 2001

The Honorable George Walker Bush
President of the United States
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
The White House
Washington, DC 20500

and

The Honorable Colin L. Powell
Secretary of State
2201 C Street, NW
Washington, DC 20520

Dear President Bush and Secretary Powell:

American University faculty fellow Dr. Zhan Gao, her husband Dong Xue, and their 5-year old son Andrew were detained by the Chinese government on February 11th as they prepared to return to the United States. Mr. Xue and his son were subsequently released in March, but Dr. Gao remains in Chinese custody on charges that her research has damaged Chinese national security.

Dr. Gao has published research on womenís issues and cultural clashes between China and the United States. During her detention, she has been denied access to a lawyer. Her son was not allowed any contact with family members throughout his detention and he is still traumatized by the events. There is no indication that the Chinese government intends to release Dr. Gao.

The undersigned, speaking on behalf of Americaís 3,700 public and private two- and four-year colleges and universities, respectfully request that you continue to protest this arbitrary interference with the academic and human rights of Dr. Gao. Her unjustified, unprincipled detention is an affront to the open research and discourse that is the very foundation of academic scholarship around the world. We urge you to seek her immediate release.

Sincerely,

________________________________________________________

Detained Scholars***Dr. Gao Zhan was born in Nanjing, China. She received an M.A. in Chinese literature from Nanjing University in 1987 and a Ph.D. in sociology from Syracuse University in 1997. Her doctoral thesis studied "The Sojourning Life as Problematic: Marital Crises of Chinese Students Who Are Studying in the U.S.A." An unpaid researcher at American University, in Washington, D.C., Gao's research interests have included marriage, family, and women in China, Taiwan, and the Chinese diaspora. She is the author of two recent articles published in The Journal of Chinese Political Studies, "Male Sphere Invaded: Taiwan Women's Political Participation," and "New Life Vs. Old Value System: Marital Crises of Chinese Students Sojourning in the United States." Ms. Gao is a Chinese citizen with a U.S. green card. She is the mother of a five-year-old son who is an American citizen.

On March 27, 2001 Dr. Gao Zhan was formally charged with spying.

On July 24, Dr. Gao Zhan was convicted in a closed trial on charges of collecting intelligence for Taiwan and sentenced to ten years in prison. She was allowed to leave China on July 26, ahead of a scheduled trip to China by U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell on July 28.***

[jaykay]

"Her release was secured in part by President Bush's phone call to Chinese President Jiang Zemin, which came during a time of tense U.S.-China relations following an mid-air collision between a U.S. spy plane and a Chinese fighter jet.'

Too bad no one on our side wondered why they let her go so easily. In retrospect, we see that they had turned her. We can complain about being stabbed in the back, but we have some responsibility ourselves to be a little smarter, more cynical and suspicious of other's motivations.

[Cincinatus' Wife]

***Washington, DC - Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee, Ranking Member of the Immigration Subcommittee will be holding a press conference on Wednesday, June 6, at 11:00 a.m, at the House Tangle with Dong Xu, husband to Dr. GAO Zhan. GAO Zhan is a United States lawful permanent resident and American University professor who is currently being detained in China on charges of espionage.

On February 11, 2001, while visiting relatives in China, Dr. GAO Zhan and her family were arrested on espionage charges. As required by treaty, Chinese officials failed to notify the United States Embassy in China of the detention. The Chinese authorities did release GAO Zhan's husband and child -- both United States citizens. However, GAO Zhan remains in detention.

There has been no contact with GAO Zhan since she was arrested -- almost four months ago. All attempts to locate GAO Zhan have failed. The United States Embassy in China and other United States officials as well as attorneys from both the United States and China have tried to locate the whereabouts of GAO Zhan. The Chinese government has refused to share any information.

Since all requests to release GAO Zhan have been denied, Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee has introduced a bill, H.R.1385 which would grant citizenship to GAO Zhan. Congresswoman Jackson Lee has stated "This bill is critical because the way the Chinese government treats a lawful permanent resident differs from that of a United States citizen." The granting of citizenship to Gao Zhan is so important because the Chinese government would be required to give United States officials the opportunity to visit GAO Zhan if she was a United States citizen.

GAO Zhan has a five year old son who has not seen his mother since February. We need to pass this legislation, H.R. 1385, and bring GAO Zhan and her family back together. Source

[Brian Allen]

<< .... deals with ["Silvarado-Neil"] Bush's contract with one of China's major semiconductor firms, Grace Semiconductor Manufacturing Corp. of Shanghai. The giant conglomerate, one of mainland China's major firms, is backed by Jiang Mianheng, the son of former Chinese President Jiang Zemin. The contract is expected to bring Bush $2 million in stock over five years.

Brown seemed incredulous as to why Grace would retain Bush. "You have absolutely no educational background in semiconductors do you?" he asked in the March 4 deposition.

"That's correct, " Bush responded.

"And you have absolutely over the last 10, 15, 20 years not a lot of demonstrable business experience that would bring about a company investing $2 million in you, " Brown asked.

"I personally would object to the assumption that they're investing $2 million in me, " Bush answered.

Earlier this month, Taiwan's leader Chen Shui-bian denied reports that he paid $1 million for a 30-minute meeting with Neil Bush in New York. ...... >>

As were those of "Hong-Kong-Maggie" Thatcher and her pre-June 30 1997 cabinet] -- at least four generations of the Bush family are arse deep in scurrilous dealings the Hu/Jiang Gang.

And to think we used to be worried that Jiang's gangsters and the rest of Peking's pyschopathological-predator "politicians" called KKKring Tong, "nanren man zai hua sheng tun!" [Our man in Washington]

[Cincinatus' Wife]

Source LINK please.

[observer5]

China probably released her under the condition that she spy for them.