IP: Wash Post: China Finds Bugs on Jet Equipped in U.S.

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

> Date: Sat, 19 Jan 2002 14:16:12 -0800
> From: "Robert J. Berger" <rberger () ultradevices com>
>
> China Finds Bugs on Jet Equipped in U.S.
> Devices Taken Off Presidential Plane Could Become Issue at Summit
>
> By John Pomfret
> Washington Post Foreign Service
> Saturday, January 19, 2002; Page A01
> http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A5176-2002Jan18.html
>
> BEIJING, Jan. 18 -- Somewhere on a military airfield north of Beijing, 
> China's presidential aircraft, a new Boeing 767-300ER with all the 
> trimmings, sits unused with parts of its innards torn out.
>
> Last October, days before its planned maiden voyage, Chinese military 
> communications experts discovered numerous high-tech listening devices 
> planted inside the plane, according to Chinese and Western sources, who 
> said they had been told of this by Chinese military officers and aviation 
> officials. The plane was grounded and has not been flown since it was 
> delivered.
>
> Chinese aviation officials and military officers have charged that U.S. 
> intelligence agencies planted the bugs aboard the plane while it was being 
> refitted in the United States, the sources said. The U.S. Embassy declined 
> to comment on the allegations. Analysts said the devices were highly 
> sophisticated.
>
> A CIA spokesman, Bill Harlow, declined to comment on the report, saying, 
> "We never comment on allegations like these, as a matter of policy."
>
> The story behind the immobile Boeing jet offers a tantalizing glimpse of 
> modern spycraft. A Chinese source, with close ties to China's military 
> intelligence services, said members of the Third Department of the General 
> Staff Department of the People's Liberation Army discovered the devices. 
> The Third Department deals in signals intelligence.
>
> The Chinese source said that, to date, 27 listening devices had been 
> found, including devices in the presidential bathroom and in the headboard 
> of the presidential bed.
>
> A Western executive and a Western diplomat said they had been told by 
> Chinese aviation sources that the devices were highly sophisticated. The 
> diplomat said they "had to be triggered by a satellite communication. In 
> that sense, they were very advanced."
>
> U.S. sources have said the controversy over the plane is emerging as an 
> issue in the summit meeting between President Bush and President Jiang 
> Zemin scheduled for Feb. 21 in Beijing. Chinese analysts said the incident 
> confirms their fears that the United States is an untrustworthy partner 
> and continues to treat China as an enemy.
>
> After the listening devices were discovered, Western sources said, 20 
> Chinese air force officers and two officials from China Air Supply Import 
> & Export Corp., which was involved in negotiations for the jet, were 
> detained. Chinese sources said they were being investigated for negligence 
> and for corruption -- the American firms were paid about $10 million for 
> the refitting job but China doled out $30 million.
>
> In addition, a senior air force officer is under a form of house arrest 
> for his role in the affair. The officer has previously purchased planes 
> for government officials through the auspices of China United Airlines, 
> owned by the Chinese air force, which also had a piece of the transaction 
> in question. A top officer of the Bodyguards Bureau of the General Staff 
> Department of the People's Liberation Army has also been criticized for 
> tolerating the lax security, the sources said.
>
> The China Air Supply Import & Export Corp. and China United Airlines 
> declined to comment on the situation.
>
> It is unclear how the episode could affect Boeing, which signed a $2 
> billion deal in September to sell planes to China.
>
> More broadly, Western diplomats said they believed Washington and Beijing 
> would weather the dispute. "This kind of thing is to be expected," said a 
> Chinese security expert, who noted that relations between Washington and 
> Moscow were not seriously disrupted by disclosures in the 1980s that the 
> Soviets had bugged the new U.S. Embassy. The expert added, "Even if our 
> relations were excellent, we would still spy on each other."
>
> China purchased the Boeing 767-300ER in June 2000 for $120 million, a 
> Chinese source said. An executive at Delta Airlines said the Chinese were 
> so eager to obtain a top-of-the-line 767 that Delta allowed China to 
> assume its contractual responsibilities for one plane about to come off 
> Boeing's assembly line in Seattle.
>
> China's state-run media, which dubbed the plane Air Force One, reported 
> the sale in August of that year. Several reports, including one that 
> appeared in the Guangzhou Daily, a mass circulation newspaper in that 
> southern metropolis, said the plane had already been brought to China for 
> refitting.
>
> In fact, the plane had been sent to the San Antonio International Airport 
> for refitting by several aircraft maintenance firms, including Dee Howard 
> Aircraft Maintenance L.P., Gore Design Completions Ltd., Rockwell Collins 
> Inc. and Avitra Aviation Services Ltd., a Singapore firm, according to 
> companies that worked on the contract. The job was worth less than $10 
> million, an industry source said, and work continued during a very tense 
> period in U.S.-Chinese relations following the April 1, 2001, collision 
> between a U.S. reconnaissance aircraft and a Chinese jet off the coast of 
> southern China.
>
> In a report about the refitting work published last September, the San 
> Antonio Express-News quoted Earl Parker, a project manager for Avitra, as 
> saying the plane was not a "plain Jane, like [U.S.] Air Force One." Parker 
> told the newspaper the plane was refitted to accommodate about 100 people 
> in beige leather chairs that could be converted into beds. Larger, 
> one-hour oxygen canisters replaced the 20-minute type used on most 
> aircraft. And the new presidential suite consisted of a bedroom, sitting 
> room and a bath with a shower. The firms also added a 48-inch television 
> set, satellite communications and advanced avionics.
>
> Chinese security guards provided round-the-clock security for the plane 
> while it was being refitted, the newspaper said.
>
> How the listening devices got on board the plane is a mystery. Phil 
> O'Connor, a vice president at Dee Howard Aircraft Maintenance of San 
> Antonio, said today was the first time he he had heard of the allegations.
>
> Robert Sanchez, chief operations officer at Gore Design Completions, also 
> of San Antonio, said he did not believe the allegations.
>
> "We had an excellent relationship with every Chinese official who worked 
> on this project," he said. "We're not in the business of doing things like 
> this." A Rockwell Collins spokeswoman said the company would have no comment.
>
> Work was completed on the plane in August, and it was flown to China on 
> Aug. 10, stopping in Honolulu. A group of American workers and their 
> families accompanied the plane as guests of the Chinese government, 
> Sanchez said.
>
> "The Chinese were very happy with the aircraft and with the work we did. 
> They took the workers to the Great Wall and showed them around," said 
> Sanchez. "Why would any of these corporations or workers consider that, if 
> they knew anything about this?"
>
> Western diplomats and executives learned of the case in mid-October when 
> Chinese officials they normally did business with did not appear for 
> meetings. Chinese friends and colleagues informed them that the officials 
> had been arrested, they said.
>
> The arrests occurred in China about the time that Jiang was supposed to 
> take his maiden voyage in the jet to attend the summit of the Asia-Pacific 
> Economic Cooperation forum in Shanghai. Jiang flew to the meeting on 
> another airplane.
>
> Sanchez said Chinese government officials have not contacted his firm 
> about the problems. He also said that Chinese aviation officials said they 
> wanted Gore to work on three additional VIP aircraft.
>
> "We're technical, not political," Sanchez said. "This incident is not 
> going to hurt the U.S. government; it's not going to hurt the government 
> of China. It's only going to hurt the firms. "
>
> For years, China has worried that Western governments, using Western 
> companies, would use high-tech products to compromise China's security. 
> China spent millions of dollars protecting the new headquarters of the 
> Foreign Affairs Ministry from listening devices that could potentially be 
> mounted in office buildings nearby, a Chinese security source said.
>
> Last year, the People's Daily, the official Communist Party newspaper, 
> carried an editorial in which it said the import of high-tech products 
> from the West constituted a security risk because Western governments 
> would place secret codes or technical Trojan horses inside the products to 
> collect intelligence.
>
> Staff writer Thomas E. Ricks in Washington contributed to this report.
>
>                                © 2002 The Washington Post Company
>
>
> --
> Robert J. Berger
> UltraDevices, Inc.
> 257 Castro Street, Suite 223 Mt. View CA. 94041
> Email: rberger () ultradevices com http://www.ultradevices.com
> Voice: 650-237-0334 Fax: 408-490-2868

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