China says U.S. lying about economic espionage

Last Thursday, July 16, Chinese-born engineer Dongfan ‘Greg’ Chung was convicted in the first economic espionage trial in the United States. China’s response to the implied accusation of being on the receiving end of all the space shuttle technology data that Chung had been stealing for decades?

Deny everything.

The Chinese foreign ministry issued a brief statement, which said:

“The allegation that a so-called Chinese person stole trade secrets in the United States and gave them to China is purely a fabrication made up out of ulterior motives.”

According to the Chinese newspaper, People’s Daily Online, the U.S. media has completely blown out of proportion the threat of Chinese espionage. The U.S. media, the article says, has led Americans to believe that there are 3500 Chinese spies currently working in the U.S., and that their sole purpose is to glean and send confidential information back to China.

It’s interesting that China is so vehemently denying accusations of economic espionage when they have their own case against an Australian national pending. The typical reaction in these situations is for guilty intelligence agencies not to offer comment, instead of denying what seems to be, in all likelihood, true.

images courtesy of fbi.gov and nature.com