China: Suspected Acquisition of U.S. Nuclear Weapon Secrets

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1978 to 1998, wrote publicly that “Chinese Americans are subjected to oppressive
ethnic intelligence profiling” by China and that “China’s espionage methodology, not
a particular spy, is the main threat.” He stressed the PRC’s “unconventional”
espionage by saying that “China doesn’t so much try to steal secrets as to try to
induce foreign visitors to give them away by manipulating them into certain
situations.” 205
Others argued that even if the PRC targets ethnically Chinese people, the
government should not target Americans of Chinese heritage as a group, nor would
such targeting be effective to counter PRC espionage. The policy director of Chinese
for Affirmative Action and an associate professor of law at Howard University wrote
that Lee’s case “raised disturbing allegations that the government uses a racial profile
when investigating espionage” and argued that “law enforcement based on racial
profiling is also ineffective.” 206 Former Ambassador to China James Lilley wrote,
“the fact that China tries to recruit spies doesn’t mean that Chinese-Americans as a
group should be suspect.” 207 In his statement in support of Wen Ho Lee’s motion for
discovery of materials related to selective prosecution, Charles Washington, a former
Acting Director of Counterintelligence at DOE, declared that he was not aware of any
“empirical data that would support a claim that Chinese-Americans are more likely
to commit espionage than other Americans.” 208
Members of Congress expressed concern about possible racial profiling used in
the investigation of Wen Ho Lee and ramifications of this case on Americans of
Asian Pacific heritage. In May 1999, Representative Wu introduced H.Con.Res. 124
to express the sense of Congress relating to the allegations of espionage and illegal
campaign financing that brought into question the loyalty and probity of Americans
of Asian ancestry. Among other provisions, the resolution called upon the Attorney
General, Secretary of Energy, and the Commissioner of the Equal Employment
Opportunity Commission to vigorously enforce the security of America’s national
laboratories and investigate all allegations of discrimination in public or private
workplaces. The House passed H.Con.Res. 124 with the bipartisan support of 75
cosponsors, on November 2, 1999. Moreover, on August 5, 1999, Senator Feinstein
introduced S.Con.Res. 53 to condemn prejudice against individuals of Asian and
Pacific Island ancestry in the United States. The Senate passed the resolution on July
27, 2000. The Congressional Asian Pacific Caucus held a briefing on October 5,
1999, at which Secretary Richardson and others testified. Chairman Robert
Underwood said in his opening statement that “suspicions about a Chinese American
205 Moore, Paul D., “How China Plays the Ethnic Card,” Los Angeles Times, June 24, 1999;
“Spies of a Different Stripe,” Washington Post, May 31, 1999; “China’s Subtle Spying,”New
York Times, September 2, 1999.
206 Theodore Hsien Wang and Frank H. Wu, “Singled Out, Based on Race,” Washington
Post, August 30, 2000.
207 James Lilley (former ambassador to China and former CIA officer), “Undoing the
Damage of the Wen Ho Lee Case,” New York Times, September 12, 2000.
208 Declaration of Charles E. Washington, August 11, 2000.