NEWS: Chinese Espionage

Canada's security agency, CSIS, reported to Parliament that the Chinese are making a concerted effort to gather technology from Canadian sources, including high tech companies, research labs and industrial concerns. They appear to use visiting students, scientists, and business people to obtain information. The emphasis appears to be on technology useful in the military field.



Industrial espionage has been a staple of communist regimes going back decades to the old Soviet Union. So, there is nothing really surprising about this, except that CSIS went out of their way to emphasize it this year.

We can assume that if this is happening in Canada, it is almost certainly going on throughout the major industrial nations, including the US, Europe and Japan, and it highlights the need to be cautious in dealing with Chinese entities and individuals. This is very difficult to do, given the numbers of individuals of Chinese background who have emigrated and are legitimately involved in the technology field.

I wish also to note my own concern with the head-long rush of Western technology businesses to establish manufacturing and even Research and Development facilities in China, especially given the utter lack of respect shown there for Intellectual Property rights such as patents and copyrights. I know that some companies have a practice of withholding some of their key technologies for this reason.

However, on the whole, I believe our carelessness about protecting our technology is at best giving China a free ride to compete with our home-grown industries, and at worst, allowing the potential, combined with their numbers, of an unparalled military juggernaut with unpredictable intentions. Combined with growing financial capability and growing dependence of the West on Chinese manufacture, we could be in serious trouble in 10-20 years time.

This is somewhat shocking, yet as I read it I was none too suprised for some reason. With all the talk of the Russian-Chinese Joint Military Ops, I think this problem should be dealt with quickly. This should also be investigated thoroughly in the US.

What?....this is not possible..... "our friends" in the Chinese government are spying for military technology?....

China is still and will continue to be a communist regime...they just learned to use capitalism to help their economy=military. BTW...Russia is not that far behind either.... They try to show the world they are our friends, and stab us in the back... I am talking about the Russian and Chinese governments, not their people, many of whom really want to get away from the communist regimes once and for all.

Just like the period after 9.11, most international students were regarded as hijacker just because one of 9.11 hijackers held legal f-1 visa. LOL