China

By Dr Ian Stewart, 17 October, 2022

The Washington Post today published an investigation showing that US-origin software is central to Chinaā€™s hypersonic missile development. This is part of a broader trend in which US originated technology, including semiconductors, have been exported to key strategic end uses in China.

Ge Songtao was the chairman of Shanghai Breeze Technology Co. Ltd., a Shanghai-based company that specializes in marine equipment. For the advancement of his own company, Ge was looking to source ā€œcombat rubber raiding craft equipped with engines that could operate using gasoline, diesel fuel or jet fuelā€. Ge leveraged an employee based in the United States named Yang Yang. Yang was instructed to order the gasoline engines that were military model.

Wei Sun had been an employee of Raytheon Missile and Defense for 10 years before attempting to illegally transport proprietary technical information out of the country and into China. In 2018, ahead of international travel Sun had requested to take a company laptop on his travels. Raytheon denied the request.

Yi-Chi Shih, a California resident and former president of Chengdu GaStone Technology Company (CGTC), was attempting to steal monolithic microwave integrated circuits (MMIC) from a US based company to ship back to China for reproduction by CGTC. Shih used a front company he operated called Pullman Lane Productions, LLC. Pullman was being financed by the PRC government for the acquisition of MMIC technology.