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- A US scientist supplied China with secrets
about advanced submarine-tracking radar technology, it has been reported.
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- Submarine detection technology is closely
guarded because the US Navy's ability to hide its submarines is a key military
advantage.
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- Peter Lee - assigned to a classified
Pentagon project in 1997 - told Chinese nuclear weapons experts about the
radar technology in a lecture he gave in Beijing in May 1997, according
to the New York Times.
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- 'Prosecution blocked'
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- Lee worked for defence contractor TRW
Inc, which the Pentagon had hired, said the paper which quoted court records.
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- Los Angeles federal prosecutors wanted
to charge Lee with espionage, but were stopped partly because navy officials
did not want details about the radar revealed in court, law enforcement
officials said.
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- The Justice Department in Washington
also blocked any prosecution of Lee, the paper reported.
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- Espionage claim
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- Lee admitted filing a false statement
about his 1997 trip to China and to leaking classified laser data to Chinese
scientists during an earlier trip to China in 1985.
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- In March last year he was sentenced to
12 months with three years' probation and a fine of $20,000, according
to the newspaper.
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- Lee and his lawyer contended the Taiwanese-American
scientist made serious mistakes, but never intended to aid China or damage
his own country, the Times said.
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- Arms secrets
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- The submarine technology in the Lee case
was developed at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, a weapons lab
in California.
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- The report follows earlier claims that
a scientist at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, Wen Ho Lee,
was suspected of helping China to obtain arms secrets.
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- China has repeatedly rejected the charge,
while Wen Ho Lee last week denied the claims against him.
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- The Lee case showed Chinese espionage
ran deeper than just assertions of theft at the Los Alamos lab, the Times
said.
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- It also illustrated that the US Government
believed China was successfully receiving defence secrets during President
Clinton's second term in office.
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