Chinese 'spy students' nabbed in Leuven (Belgium)

Expatica ^ | 05/11/2005 | Expatica

[thierrya]

Chinese 'spy students' nabbed in Leuven

11 May 2005

BRUSSELS – Belgium could be harbouring Chinese spies posing as students, according to the Brussels-based European Centre for Strategic and Security Studies (ESISC).

The Chinese Students and Scholars Association of Leuven (CSSAL), based at the Flemish city’s Catholic Univeristy (KULeuven) may be infiltrated by ‘students’ conducted industrial espionage in the name of research, French daily Le Monde reported on Wednesday.

A bi-monthly newsletter published by the ESISC suggests there is at least one source at Leuven “placed high in a European information service”, and that there is “a true multinational network of economic information controlled from Belgium.”

According to ESISC, this service has been operating as part of several Chinese information services for more than two years “under the cover of a very traditional front: an association of students and trainees completely independent of Chinese diplomatic structures which, for obvious reasons, are not related to these operations.”

Moreover, this network consists of several dozen agents posing as trainees in companies and scientific doctoral students and is active all over northern Europe, including Belgium, the Netherlands, the UK, Germany and France and “is trying to introduce its moles in Central Europe”.

Their priorities are university laboratories, plus the pharma and high-tech sectors.

Leuven’s Catholic University is Belgium’s biggest and oldest – and has the highest proportion of Chinese students anywhere in the country. CSSAL has some 400 to 700 members, according to the AFP news agency.

The thorny question of Chinese informants recently hit the headlines in France when Li li Whuang, a young Chinese intern at Valeo, was suspected of industrial espionage.

[Copyright Expatica 2005]

[skeeter]

Chinese students spying? Say it isn't so...

[FormerACLUmember]

This is very coordinated and broad based. Arrests have been made recently all accross Europe of ChiCom "student" industrial and military spies.

All Chinese students in techical fields are recruited by the miitary to spy as a condition of getting a student exit visa.

[Constitutionalist Conservative]

All Chinese students in techical fields are recruited by the miitary to spy as a condition of getting a student exit visa.

Not true.

[Hop A Long Cassidy]

>>>"All Chinese students in techical fields are recruited by the miitary to spy as a condition of getting a student exit visa.
>>>"Not true."

Constitutionalist Conservative, you're right. The text should have read:

"All MAINLAND Chinese students in techical fields are recruited by the miitary to spy as a condition of getting a student exit visa."

If not ALL then at least a very large amount. I believe they are coached and then instructed as to which companies and jobs to work for. College graduates from overseas can work for 1 or 2 years after graduation. This, I believe, is the source of most of the spying.

Also, many of the MAINLAND Chinese graduate students in the early "gold rush" to the U.S. were sons and daughters of high-up military and Communist party officers.

Hoppy

[Constitutionalist Conservative]

I could go along with the assertion that "many" PRC students are recruited -- but far from all. The ones who are recruited are a significant issue, one I am quite sensitive to as I work with the Chinese community at the university in my town (through a conversational English class I teach, and through my church).