Human rights activist pleads guilty to sending sensitive technology to Chi

[Judi Lynn]

Human rights activist pleads guilty to sending sensitive technology to China

CURT ANDERSON, Associated Press Writer Wednesday, November 26, 2003
(11-26) 11:04 PST WASHINGTON (AP) --

A human rights activist whom the U.S. government helped free from a Chinese prison in 2001 pleaded guilty Wednesday to illegally sending $1.5 million worth of high-tech items to China.

Gao Zhan entered the plea in federal court in Alexandria, Va., to one count of unlawful export and another count of tax evasion. Her husband, Xue Donghua, also pleaded guilty to tax evasion.

Gao, a permanent U.S. resident alien, was arrested by Chinese authorities in February 2001 and convicted of spying for Taiwan. She was released after five months in jail under intense pressure from the U.S. government and worked until spring 2002 as a researcher at American University here.

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. (snip/...)

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/news/archive/2003/11/26/national1339EST0567.DTL

[DUreader]

1. Help me out here, was this the RNC fundraiser?

Anyone recall?

[Judi Lynn]

2. Don't think so.

Here's her photo:



(The other was kinda cheesy looking. Had the affair with the FBI guy, and someone else.)

Here's GaoZhan's bio.:

(snip) Dr. Gao Zhan

Born in China in the early 1960s, Dr. Gao Zhan developed a strong interest in both Chinese and world literature. Before coming to the United States, Dr. Gao Zhan had received a Bachelor's degree in Chinese Language and Literature from Nanjing Normal University in 1982 and a Master's degree in Literary Criticism from Nanjing University in 1988. Besides publishing several research articles in Chinese, she and her colleagues introduced feminist writer Doris Lessing's "The Golden Notebook" into China in 1988.

She came to the United States in 1989, following the crackdown of the Chinese students' movement in which she participated, to pursue her Ph.D studies in Social Science at Syracuse University. Dr. Gao Zhan earned her Ph.D degree in 1997 and her dissertation was on Chinese immigrants struggle with cultural shock upon immigrating to the United States.

Dr. Gao Zhan became a Faculty Fellow at American University's School of International Service in the fall of 2000. Prior to her joining American University, Dr. Gao Zhan spent two years trying to build a women's studies program at her alma mater, Nanjing University. She also engaged in the effort of trying to establish a NGO for women in China.
Dr. Gao Zhan found that most of her previous work has been suspended following her well-publicized detention by the Chinese government. She had ambitious plans to include, using her expertise in social sciences, participating in Radio and TV talk-show programs to help with China's social transitions. She still manages to maintain her resolve in telling the world what China is truly about and what the international community can do to push its door open for change, particularly political change. Her current project is a book detailing her recent experience and her reflections on the incident. She is also serving as special commentator for Radio Free Asia and Voice and America. Her recent publications include two book chapters on Taiwan's modernization and Taiwanese women's social status change. (snip/...)

http://www.ailf.org/awards/iaa_2002_dc_bio_gzhan.asp

[demdave]

3. I wouldn't point fingers about Chinese fundraisers.....how much money

did we have to give back because of questionable donations? How many "fundraisers left the country in the middle of the night to avoid sticky questions? Nuff said.

This person was freed by the Chinese after Bush and Powell stepped in on her behalf. She was also being supported by NOW and various other organizations.

[Judi Lynn]

4. How could we forget?

RNC Returns Contributions With Hong Kong Connection
By Lena H. Sun and Dan Morgan
The Washington Post
WASHINGTON

The Republican National Committee and two other GOP organizations announced Thursday that they are returning $122,400 in campaign donations after learning that the source of the funds was a Hong Kong company with little or no assets in the United States.

The action came after months of GOP pounding on Democrats for questionable fund-raising tactics among Asians and Asian Ameri-cans. Republican officials strenuously denied any parallels with the tribulations of the Democrats, and one GOP official said accepting the contribution from the Hong Kong company was "the equivalent of inadvertently stepping on the out-of-bounds line in a basketball game."

As Republicans sought to explain the Hong Kong connection, however, it was learned that GOP officials tried to solicit funds from a range of foreign businesses for a defunct nonprofit political organization tied to the RNC and its former chairman, Haley Barbour. Records of the organization, The National Policy Forum, have been subpoenaed by the Senate committee investigating campaign fund-raising abuses.

The solicitation of foreign funds for the NPF was legal. But the effort to raise the money for a group so closely associated with the GOP, at a time when it controlled the legislative and policy agenda in Congress, has led Democrats to call for more intensive investigation of Republican fund-raising practices. (snip/...)

http://www-tech.mit.edu/V117/N25/ahongkong.25w.html

[demdave]

5. Pot meet kettle.....as I said...not a good topic to bring up.

Democrats Will Return Another $1.5 Million


WASHINGTON (AllPolitics, Feb. 28) -- The Democratic Party says it will return another $1.5 million in improper or questionable contributions it received from 77 donors during the 1996 election cycle. Gov. Roy Romer, the party's general chairman, called it "a serious amount," but "a small percentage of the overall amount raised."

An audit conducted by the Democratic National Committee (DNC) turned up the additional improper contributions. That makes about $3 million in problem donations the party has had to return. Much of the money discussed today was brought in by former DNC fund-raiser John Huang.



http://www.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/1997/02/28/dnc.returns/

[DUreader]

6. Fuck that, throw 'em in jail whatever party they're in...

[demdave]

8. My point exactly...that is why I didn't think that was a good

path to go down. I am tired of every criminal act first being preceeded by finding out what oarty they are affiliated with. There are rights and wrongs inthis world that are not mitigated by who's side you are on.

[Judi Lynn]

7. Here ya go. She was Katrina Leung

From Buzzflash:

May 19, 2003


The Chinese Spy Who Loved the GOP Too Much

A BUZZFLASH NEWS ANALYSIS

Poor Katrina Leung. If only she had given her FBI-earned money to Democrats, her bright smile would be appearing on newspaper front pages day after day, and Republicans would make sure every one in the country knew how to pronounce her name.

She wouldn’t be known as, simply, a “political fundraiser”; she’d have the more dignified title of “major Democratic Party donor and spy.” Republican attack dogs in Congress would already be conducting full-scale investigations. A special prosecutor would be called for. She would be vilified by Rush Limbaugh as a spy for the Democratic Party, which he would accuse of siding with the enemy. Bill O'Reilly would denounce her and the Democrats. Regnery Press would already have two books out railing about how she and the Democrats have committed treason against America. Ann Coulter would be calling for the chairman of the DNC to be put before a firing squad.

But Katrina Leung is unlucky in the celebrity category. She allegedly was a spy who loved the Republican Party too much. In news stories, Leung has been labeled as a "prominent Republican fundraiser" and "Republican activist." So the Republican scandal attack machine is silent, because she is one of them, after all.

The accused Chinese double agent and her husband decided to give thousands -- $27,000 in fact (by one account), since 1992 -- to the GOP.

Katrina Leung is a 49-year-old “venture capitalist” from San Marino, Calif., who was recruited by the FBI more than 20 years ago to provide information about her native China. She was paid $1.7 million for her spying efforts over the years, though she was allegedly working for China at the same time. So you could say that taxpayer money was funneled through her to support the GOP, couldn't you? Or maybe we were saved the expense and the money came from her handlers in China. Who knows? The GOP doesn't really care. After all, they've already cashed the checks. (snip/...)

http://www.buzzflash.com/analysis/03/05/19_spy.html


Katrina

[Judi Lynn]

9. Washington Post:Scholar Guilty of Selling High-Tech Goods to China

Scholar Guilty of Selling High-Tech Goods to China
Woman Exported Same Equipment Used in Military Aircraft
By Jerry Markon and William Branigin
Washington Post Staff Writers
Tuesday, November 25, 2003; 4:25 PM


A former American University researcher who was once imprisoned in China as an accused spy for Taiwan pleaded guilty today to U.S. charges that she exported 80 microprocessors to the Chinese government that could be used in aircraft weapons systems.


Gao Zhan, 43, entered her plea in U.S. District Court in Alexandria to charges of illegally exporting a controlled item and tax fraud. In a halting voice interrupted by occasional tears, she said she knew she needed a U.S. government license to export the sophisticated equipment but did not apply for one because she thought it would be denied.

Prosecutors told a federal judge that Gao had obtained the microprocessors -- which are legal in the United States but cannot be exported to China and other countries because of their potential military use -- by misrepresenting herself as needing them for research work for a Northern Virginia university.

In reality, officials said, she was running an export business and sent the equipment to a procurement agency for the Chinese government, which sent her a $540,000 wire transfer as payment. She and her husband, Xue Donghua, who was also charged today in connection with the case, then failed to report the income on their U.S. tax forms, prosecutors said. (snip/...)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A16259-2003Nov26.html

[Dogmudgeon]

10. So what about Bechtel Corp.?

We're talking massive transfer of technology, back in the 80s when The Gipper was still lucid enough to wipe the drool off of his own chin.

They must be Democrats who pissed off some Beltway Bush bastard. If the Feds had a strong case, they wouldn't have tacked on the tax evasion count.

--bkl

[LastTime2BeFree]

12. God I hope none of the Clintons get old timers sickness

The karma will be too much to handle. Actions deserve spite...not sickness.

[papau]

11. GOP favored (Sen Allen-R-Virg) Human rights activist are spies - and no

media on tv or radio!

Why am I not surprised?

:-)

[demdave]

13. Hardly GOP favored

The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) is the largest organization of natural and social scientists in the United States, and the world's largest federation of scientific organizations, with 145,000 individual members and 300 affiliated groups. Our AAAS Committee on Scientific Freedom and Responsibility was formed in 1976 to protect the human rights of scientists and to deal with issues relating to scientific freedom worldwide.

On behalf of the Committee, I am writing to express my concern about the recent detention of Dr. Gao Zhan.

http://shr.aaas.org/aaashran/csfrlets.php?cl_id=12

Human Rights In China

Detention of scholars sends shivers through
global academic community

When the news broke in March that US-based Chinese scholar Gao Zhan had been detained on spying charges, it quickly led to the release of information about other similar cases of academics who had been arrested by State Security authorities

http://iso.hrichina.org:8151/iso/article.adp?article_id=615&subcategory_id=24


National Organization of Women


"China's human rights abuses extend beyond Falun Gong practitioners," Ireland said. "At NOW's recent national conference, activists passed a resolution demanding justice for Gao Zhan, a scholar from Tysons Corner, Virginia, who has been imprisoned without trial in China since February 11. Her only crime seems to be writing on the status of women and traveling in China. The U.S. government must takes steps to end to these abuses."

http://www.now.org/press/04-01/07-18.html

[Judi Lynn]

14. Ha! There was a lot of noise when they "discovered" her, for sure.

Found this snippet from a speech made by the inestimable Senator Allen:

Senator George Allen: The U.S. position vis-a-vis the People's Republic of China is very difficult, unsettled, and multifaceted. Insofar as the military aspect is concerned. I believe President Bush, Secretary Rumsfeld and Sec. Powell are taking the proper approach of being strong and resolved, including standing by our commitment under the Taiwan Relations Act to allow the Taiwanese to protect themselves. The second area of concern is trade. In trade, we need to stay engaged with the Chinese, to open their market to American agricultural products, our services, and other goods. The third area of concern is human rights. In human rights we must stay strong in our advocacy for human beings to express their religious beliefs and ideas in a free manner. Gao Zhan is a woman whose 5-year-old son lives in Virginia, as well as her husband. She's now been held 79 days by the Chinese on concocted espionage charges. She and other academics should be released, rather than detained, by the fearful authorities in China. So, in a variety of areas, the U.S. must and should stay engaged with the Chinese, but sticking to our principles, national interest, and ideals. (snip)

http://www.cnn.com/COMMUNITY/transcripts/2001/04/30/allen/

Thanks for the Senator Allen reference. Very amusing. Do you think he will launch another blast of hot air to illuminate us, concerning her sorry misadventure in America?