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- WASHINGTON - Fox News has learned that cover stories provided by Chinese
operatives to hide China,s illegal campaign contributions may have come
from or been approved by President Jiang Zemin. Transcripts of FBI wiretaps
obtained by Fox News also point to the possibility that President Clinton
may have known of both the illegal donations and what was to be said if
they were discovered.
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- New details of China's acquisition and
distribution of U.S. weapons technology appear in a congressional report,
Fox News has also learned.
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- A great deal of China,s illegal contributions
to 1996 Democratic campaigns passed through Johnny Chung, a Taiwan-born
U.S. citizen who received $300,000 from the head of Chinese military intelligence
to be given to the Democratic National Committee and Clinton,s re-election
campaign. When the contributions were discovered, Chung was charged with
making illegal donations, and later pleaded guilty.
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- Chung last week told Congress he was
under orders from the Chinese to keep the whole thing quiet. His orders,
he said, came from a suspected Chinese intelligence operative named Robert
Luu, who worked for a Los Angeles law firm.
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- In a phone conversation tapped by the
FBI, Chung was told by Luu to say the campaign money came from the so-called
princelings: Chinese leaders, grown sons, who live, study and often live
lavishly in the West.
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- A transcript of the wiretap, obtained
by Fox News, contains the following:
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- Luu: "Shove the blame on the shoulders
of the princelings."
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- Chung: "So blame it on the princelings.
Do not implicate the Chinese government."
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- Luu: "Yes. Chairman Jiang agreed
to handle it like this; the president over here also agreed."
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- Since both men were in the United States
when the call occurred, those words -- "the president over here also
agreed" " may indicate that President Clinton and China's President
Jiang Zemin had agreed on how to spin the story if it got out.
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- The White House has strongly denied any
such thing occurred.
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- Chung's contacts with Chinese intelligence
were well known to Luu.
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- Chung' s primary contact was Lt. Col.
Liu Chaoying of the People,s Liberation Army. She arranged the meeting
between Chung and Gen. Ji, chief of China's military intelligence, who
provided Chung with the money for campaign donations.
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- Robert Luu told Chung never to tell investigators
about two U.S. satellite firms, Loral Space and Hughes Electronics, or
their relationship with Liu Chaoying who, as head of China Aerospace, the
company that lofts American satellites into orbit on Chinese rockets, had
negotiated their Chinese contracts.
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- Fox News has learned that Congress was
unaware Johnny Chung had been told above all else, don,t say anything about
Loral and Hughes.
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- Loral and Hughes are currently under
investigation for illegally helping China improve its missile technology.
Sources say China wanted to keep the companies out of the scandal in order
to protect its business arrangements and ability to acquire U.S. technology.
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- Another former Clinton fund-raiser, Yah
Lin "Charlie" Trie, has now also pleaded guilty and agreed to
cooperate with Justice Department investigators. Sources say they have
reason to suspect Trie also may have been involved with Loral and Hughes
and their export relationship with China.
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- The Pentagon concluded two years ago
that Loral and Hughes had harmed national security by helping China improve
its missile technology, but the President kept letting the companies do
business with China, signing waivers allowing the two companies to export
their satellites.
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- A series of launch failures, followed
by the companies, unauthorized aid to Chinese scientists investigating
the rocket crashes, prompted a congressional investigation, which on Tuesday
will release its findings on Chinese espionage.
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- While it has been expected for weeks
that the report will say China stole nuclear, conventional and space-based
weapons technology from the United States, Fox News has learned the report
will also say that China has been passing those secrets on to rogue nations
hostile to America, including Iran, Syria, North Korea, Libya and Pakistan.
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